Dire Straits guitarist John Illsley lists Australian bolthole as Point Piper loses some of its pop

The legendary Dire Straits bass guitarist John Illsley has listed his comfortably plush Point Piper apartment.

It cost $690,000 shortly after Dire Straits' 1986 tour of Australia.

It comes with $3 million-plus hopes.

The stylishly reinvented 241-square-metre apartment is atop a Wolseley Road block of seven called Harbour Gate.

It has an enormous wraparound balcony.

There's also a private boat shed on title with access to Seven Shillings Beach, according to the marketing through Sally Hampshire of Laing+Simmons Double Bay and McGrath agent Bethwyn Richards.

It was bought after Dire Straits' 1986 tour of Australia, with Title Tattle recalling reports by then  gossip columnists of Illseley's relationship with the former Penthouse Pet of the Year Tracey Wallace.

Illsley's marriage went on to the rocks when his wife, Paula, heard Tracey had moved into the Point Piper flat, according to a 1988 column by Dorian Wild.

"A stunning brunette with a willowy figure," Wild wrote. Wallace had been Australia's Penthouse Pet of the Year in 1980.

These days the English-born Illsley, who lives in Hampshire, paints having promised himself to pursue that passion when the time came in 1993 for Dire Straits to finish its touring. The band broke up in 1995.