Douglas Elliman agent Jack Rooney closed a $73 million sale, the second-highest deal of the year on Palm Beach Island. The all-cash transaction occurred quietly off-market.
“High-end clients are still flocking to the luxury Palm Beach market from Texas, California and the northeast,” Rooney tells Behind The Hedges. “Sophisticated clients want the ability to walk right in with their toothbrush and Tumi luggage and be done. The longstanding issue with the Palm Beach Market is a simple as a supply and demand issue. There is tons of demand and not a lot of supply and as far as the island goes they aren’t making any more of it.”
The New York Post‘s Gimme Shelter, which was the first to report the sale, says the deal includes all furniture at 530 South Ocean Boulevard, which boasts direct ocean views across South Ocean Boulevard.
Rooney, who was Douglas Elliman’s Rookie of the Year in 2023, represented both the buyer and the seller in the transaction. Rooney did not comment on the buyer.
The deal closed on Thursday, March 27.
Billionaire Ric Elias and his wife, Brenda, were the sellers of the French Provincial-style stucco manse with a columned facade. Elias, who is the co-founder and CEO of Red Ventures, a digital media company and also survived the Flight 1549 plane crash known as the “Miracle on the Hudson” in 2009, purchased it in 2020 for $37.25 million, though they live in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The 14,000-square-foot house offers eight bedrooms, 11 full bathrooms and four half bathrooms and was designed by Smith & Moore Architects with Marc-Michaels Interior Design. Features include stone and wood flooring and intricate moldings, according to the listing back in 2020.
The nearly three-quarter acre lot also includes a pool, a cabana and gardens.
Sir Peter Wood, an English insurance magnate who, at least at the time, lived next door, built the residence as as sepc house in 2018. Four years earlier, he bought 2.6 acres from billionaire businessman and philanthropist Jon Stryker, in 2014 as part of a bigger real estate deal, according to Mansion Global in 2020. He sold a parcel and used the remaining lots to build the spec house and the one he lived in, razing a house in the process that had once been owned by the late singer Jimmy Buffett, who also has ties to the Hamptons.
The biggest trade of the year reportedly belongs to the sale of two oceanfront lots that were last asking $177.8 million. Owned by William Lauder, the billionaire heir to the Estée Lauder fortune, the 2.8-acre property was originally listed at $200 million. The Wall Street Journal reported the property was in contract in February. If the deal closes above $170 million, it would set a record for Palm Beach.
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