Gabe Newell, yacht enthusiast and the founder of one of the biggest videogame storefronts and developers on the planet, has just bought a big stonking house with his seemingly bottomless well of "I own Steam" money.
The news comes courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, which reveals that Newell has bought a property in Manalapan, Florida, for $70.8 million from Cindy and Ron McMackin. The home's previous owners certainly didn't get a bad deal, mind, having purchased it for $39 million in 2020. Ah, to be on the property ladder and to make almost $32 million just by living somewhere.
Anyway, the estate—which has about 20,000 square footage—is located on the Intracoastal Waterway and has a tunnel directly connecting the house to a slice of the ocean, as you can see in the video embedded above. It also, naturally, has a dock and boat lift. Likely for Newell's superyachts (or indeed, a smaller boat to ferry him back and forth) one of which he purchased for $500 million back in May.
It also enjoys a substantial outdoor pool, which is appropriately snazzy for a mansion that costs more than you or I'll likely see in our lifetimes. On the whole, it's an appropriate domicile for Newell, who has taken up a lot of scuba diving in recent years. Back in July of last year, Newell confirmed in a YouTube interview that his daily routine was the following:
"I get up, I work, I go scuba-diving, work some more, [then] either go on a second scuba dive or I go to the gym and work out. I live on a boat so I just hang out with everybody on the boat. Then I work."
So, yeah—snagging a mansion where you can live on both your big boat(s) and an actual demesne seems like a logical next step. I'm happy for him—and not at all jealous of his routine scuba breaks, which I tried to suggest as an expense for the team here at PC Gamer and was told "Harvey, we cannot afford a superyacht". Life is deeply and mercilessly unfair, sometimes.
