By Darrell Hofheinz, Palm Beach Daily News
Less than two weeks after a Palm Beach couple sold their North End home near the ocean for $18 million, the house next door at 1072 N. Ocean Blvd has changed hands for a recorded $30 million, a newly recorded deed shows. Both houses were sold in off-market deals.
The two houses stand opposite side-by-side vacant oceanfront lots across the street that sold together early this year in an off-market deal said to have hit $160 million. The exact price that changed hands in the sale of the two lots and the identity of the buyer were never disclosed because of the way the deal was structured.
The buyer of the four-bedroom house that just sold at 1072 N. Ocean Blvd. was Mango Leaf LLC, a Delaware-registered limited liability company, according to the deed recorded June 23. The house next door at 1066 N. Ocean Blvd. sold to a different to Delaware-registered entity via a deed recorded June 11.
The deed for the sale of No. 1072 lists the buyer with a Vero Beach mailing address at 170 Island Creek Drive in Indian River Shores on John’s Island. Property records link that waterfront house to Brian A. and Deborah B. Murdock, who bought it in 2018.
The deed for the sale of 1066 N. Ocean Blvd. next door identifies the buyer as Creekshore LLC, with a Palm Beach mailing address that matches the office of the Rabideau Klein law firm headed by attorneys Guy Rabideau and David Klein. The identity of anyone else associated with the buying entity of No. 1066 remains cloaked, thanks to Delaware’s strict corporate privacy laws.
The Mediterranean-style house at No. 1072 was sold by a land trust named after the property’s address, for which Rabideau served as trustee.
Rabideau could not be reached for comment. Because of privacy rules governing trusts, no other information about anyone connected to the selling entity was immediately available in public records.
The trust that sold No. 1072 had paid $5.25 million for the property in September 2017, according to property records. Built in 2000, the house stands on a lot of about two-fifths of an acre at the corner of Orange Grove Road, about a half-mile north of the Palm Beach Country Club.
With 7,509 square feet of living space, inside and out, the house at No. 1072 has three-bedrooms, a winding staircase, fireplaces in the living room and dining room, an elevator and two-car garage, according to a previous sales listing. The outdoor living spaces at No. 1072 include poolside loggias, balconies and a patio off the family room. The property also has deeded beach access.
The house at No. 1072 is immediately north of the smaller one that sold at 1066 N. Ocean Blvd. less than two weeks prior. In that deal, the sellers were media executive Cathleen “Cathie” P. Black and her attorney husband, Thomas E. Harvey.
In a nearly simultaneous purchase, Black and Harvey paid a recorded $12 million for a substantially renovated 1960s-era house — with four bedrooms and 5,272 total square feet — on the North End at 302 Via Linda.
Black is a former publisher and president of USA Today, which is owned by Gannett, the parent company of the Palm Beach Daily News. She also is a former president and chair of Hearst Magazines who has served on the boards of Fortune 500 companies. Her husband’s career in public service has included tenure with U.S. veterans and military agencies, including service as principal deputy assistant secretary for logistics of the Navy.
PalmBeachDailyNews.com previously reported on the two transactions involving Black and Harvey as well as the sale of the vacant lots sales across the street. Those lots were sold by companies affiliated with billionaire William P. Lauder, chairman of the board of Estée Lauder Cos., the cosmetics empire named for his grandmother. The empty lots at 1063 and 1071 N. Ocean Blvd. measure 2.26 acres with about 363 feet of direct shoreline between them.
In the sale of the vacant lots in February, broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate negotiated for Lauder opposite broker Ryan Serhant, who heads the Serhant real estate agency and starred in the television show “Million Dollar Listings: New York.” Serhant is currently starring in another show, “Owning Manhattan.”
Serhant also handled the buyers’ sides of the just-closed house sales at 1066 and 1072 N. Ocean Blvd., Serhant confirmed before declining further comment.
Angle, who also declined to comment, represented the seller of No. 1072. He also played a role in the sale of 1066 N. Ocean Blvd. the Palm Beach Daily News confirmed.
Angle had handled both sides of the 2017 sale of 1072 N. Ocean Blvd., according to records in the multiple listing service.
Harvey and Black, who declined to discuss their two recent transactions, had bought the house at 1066 N. Ocean Boulevard in 2018 for a recorded $4.15 million and had it homesteaded as their primary residence in the latest Palm Beach County tax rolls.
In Black and Harvey’s recent sale of 1066 N. Ocean Blvd. and their purchase of 302 Via Linda, they were represented by agents Ashley McIntosh and Kendall Corso of Douglas Elliman Real Estate. McIntosh confirmed for the Palm Beach Daily News that she and Corso handled the sellers’ side of 1066 N. Ocean Blvd. but she declined further comment.
The house at No. 1066 was built in 2003, property records show, and occupies a quarter-acre lot on the northwest corner of List Road. The house has high ceilings, a covered loggia, a two-car garage and impact-resistant glass doors and windows, according to a previous sales listing. When the house at No. 1066 sold in 2018, the layout included a living room, family room, formal dining room, breakfast area and a library with its own bathroom, the MLS shows.
In the 2018 sale of 1066 N. Ocean Blvd., McIntosh handled the buyer’s side. Representing the seller in that deal was agent Ben Stein, then of Brown Harris Steven but today with Sotheby’s International Realty.
The deed for Black and Harvey’s $12 million purchase on Via Linda was recorded June 5. Negotiating opposite McIntosh and Corso in that deal was Rob Thomson, owner of Waterfront Properties & Club Communities. Thomson represented seller Noémi K. Neidorff, who acted as personal representative of the estate of her late husband, health-care executive Michael F. Neidorff.
The house on Via Linda has four-bedrooms and 4,305 square feet of living space, according to Thomson’s listing. That house was built in 1961 and substantially renovated in 2019. It stands on a lot of about a third of an acre at the southwest corner of Via Linda and North Lake Way.