Billionaire video game developer Gabe Newell paid $70.9 million for Cindy and Ron McMackin’s lake-to-ocean estate in Manalapan, just south of Palm Beach.
The McMackins, who own the engineering subcontracting firm Pan-Pacific Mechanical, sold their 22,900-square-foot, 2-acre mansion at 1660 South Ocean Boulevard to Building Florida Home LLC, a company managed by Newell. The LLC financed the deal with a $46 million mortgage from Morgan Stanley.
Newell co-founded and is the majority owner of the video game company Valve Corporation, which developed games that include Half-Life and the company’s digital distribution service called Steam.
His seven-bedroom, 11-and-a-half-bathroom estate in Manalapan features a tunnel that connects the mansion to an air-conditioned beach bungalow with a kitchen and living area. The Mackins paid $38.9 million for the property in 2020, the year the house was built, records show. It was built by Robert Burrage’s RWB Construction Management and designed by Benedict Bullock Group and interior design firm Marc-Michaels.
The McMackins purchased the estate after selling their Palm Beach mansion at 1480 North Lake Way to Sylvester Stallone for $35.4 million.
The Real Deal toured the tunnel in 2024. It’s one of fewer than two dozen homes in Manalapan with tunnel access to the ocean.
The house was on the market, most recently asking $85 million, with Premier Estate Properties’ Margit Brandt. That means it sold for about 17 percent off the asking price.
The deal occurred around the same time that developer Stewart Satter sold a 4-acre property in Manalapan for a combined $67 million to two high-profile buyers: billionaires Larry Ellison and David MacNeil. Brandt is representing MacNeil, and Douglas Elliman’s Nick Malinosky is representing Satter in both sales. Satter had planned a record-setting $285 megamansion on that property.
MacNeil owns property north of the lot and Ellison has a 15-acre compound to the south. Ellison also owns the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa in Manalapan, and MacNeil has bought and sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of luxury homes in South Florida. In April, MacNeil, founder of WeatherTech, sold a 3.6-acre oceanfront assemblage in Manalapan for $105 million. That was the most expensive land sale ever in the Palm Beach County enclave.