London's jet setting Boglione family sell $19.5m Palm Beach trophy home

The Palm Beach trophy home Gaelforce, owned by London-based jet-setters Gael and Francesco Boglione, has sold two months after it was listed with a $19.5 million asking price.

The exact sale figure remains undisclosed by Peter Robinson of LJ Hooker Palm Beach, but he confirmed the sale within days of the expressions of interest deadline and for a result in line with its asking price.

The Bogliones, owners of the revered English restaurant Petersham Nurseries Cafe long led by chef Skye Gyngell, have been unable to visit their Palm Beach getaway for the past year due to the national border closures, leaving their Spanish mission-inspired trophy home on the Pittwater waterfront to the luxury holiday rental market.

Australian-born Gael bought Gaelforce from her friend, socialite Amanda Nankervis, for almost $5.5 million in 2006, and, according to a 2016 story inVogue Living, the builder John Fielding, of Bellevarde Constructions, was commissioned after a heli-skiing trip in Greenland and introductions to its architect Grant Cheyne were made over dinner with Neil Perry.

The Bogliones are well known for their high-end restorations and renovations. Their 17th-century Queen Anne estate Petersham House near London on the Thames River was purchased in the 1990s thanks to their friend Mick Jagger’s recommendation and later restored into what is often billed as one of England’s most beautiful homes.

The sale of Gaelforce is the highest Palm Beach sale result since a year ago when investment banker Mike Messara paid $24 million for the weekender of the late media legend Sam Chisholm.

It comes amid one of the strongest boom markets in decades in which the median house price in Palm Beach soared 14.5 per cent in the year to March, according to Domain Data.

Late last year architects-turned-property-developers Susan and Garry Rothwell paid $14 million for the Palm Beach retreat The Hideaway as part of a 9000-square-metre consolidation, and last week settled on a fifth neighbouring house to further enlarge their compound when they paid $3.2 million for the house Arcadia.