CELEBRITY REAL ESTATE NEWS UPDATE: Million-Dollar Listings: <span”>Couple Sells Palm Beach Condo For $6.5M; Their $105M-House Buy Set Fla. Record
<span”> By Darrell Hofheinz – Posted May 25, 2020 at 10:03 AM Updated May 26, 2020 at 10:01 AM
The Buyers In A Record-Setting Palm Beach Deal Recorded At $105 Million last year on Billionaires Row have sold a penthouse condominium on the south end of town for $6.5 million.
The couple who late last year set a Florida residential price record — via a Palm Beach deal recorded at $105 million — have parted with their penthouse condominium across town for $6.5 million, courthouse records show.
In the sale recorded Friday, hedge-fund manager Steven B. Schonfeld sold the four-bedroom oceanfront condo at 3000 S. Ocean Blvd., which he shared with his wife, Brooke Kaplan Schonfeld.
The buyer was a Delaware-registered limited liability company named Caribbean Pearl LLC and its mailing address on the deed was the condo it just bought. Because of Delaware’s strict corporate privacy laws, no other information about the entity was immediately available in public records.
Penthouse 4 in Bellaria was sold through a revocable trust for which Steven Schonfeld served as its trustee, according to preliminary information posted on the Palm Beach County Clerk’s website. The sale was confirmed by an updated sales listing for the condo in the local multiple listing service.
In December, the Schonfelds grabbed national headlines for being on the buyer’s side of the record-setting sale of hair-and-beauty mogul Sydell Miller’s beachfront estate at 1415 S. Ocean Blvd. The actual amount that changed hands in that deal — $111 million — exceeded the price recorded at the courthouse, sources at the time confirmed to the Daily News. Steven Schonfeld used a different trust in that sale.
The estate on Billionaires Row is about four miles north of the condo that just sold.
Steven Schonfeld founded the trading firm Schonfeld Strategic Advisors and serves as its non-executive chairman.
Broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate listed the penthouse in September at $7.35 million. The MLS shows the condo landed under contract April 10, more than three weeks after Palm Beach began responding in earnest to the threat of the coronavirus pandemic. Angle declined to comment.
Agent Greg Forest of Sotheby’s International Realty handled the buyer’s side of the condo sale, according to the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.
Forest declined to discuss specifics of the transaction or to identify his client. But he said the apartment was remarkable.
“You’re not going to find many Palm Beach penthouses like this particular one with its immense size, expansive outdoor terrace, sweeping ocean-to-Intracoastal views, and soaring ceiling heights. Delighted for my client,” Forest said.
Penthouse 4 has 7,794 square feet of living space inside and on its balconies, which are broader than others in Bellaria, records show. Accessed via a private elevator, the penthouse is in the northernmost of Bellaria’s two buildings, each with five residential floors. The condo slices through the building and has terraces on the east and west sides that capture wide views of the ocean, the Intracoastal Waterway and the city of Lake Worth, according to its sales listing.
The apartment has 14-foot ceilings throughout, with the exception of a 17-foot vaulted ceiling in the combined living-and-dining area.
Angle also represented the Schonfelds last year when they bought the estate from Miller, a deal in which broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens also took part. Miller, who co-founded the Matrix Essentials beauty empire, built her three-level house with 10 bedrooms and 84,626 total square feet, of which 34,775 square feet is air conditioned, property records show. The house faces about 350 feet of beachfront across a broad rear lawn.
In December, the Schonfelds told the Daily News they planned to retain their residency in New York, where they have a Park Avenue apartment in Manhattan and an estate — reportedly valued at $90 million— in Old Westbury on Long Island.
Brooke Schonfeld said at the time she had worked for years to persuade her husband to trade their vacation home in Boca Raton for one in Palm Beach, where her parents, Susan and Glenn Kaplan, have deep roots. It took some convincing until he agreed to buy the penthouse in Bellaria, she said.
Steven Schonfeld said he was immediately impressed with the island, his wife said. Although they discussed building a new home in Palm beach, they were taken by the former Miller estate once they toured it, she added.
According to Angle’s sales listing, the Bellaria condo has marble floors and a formal dining room with an oversize terrace overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. The oceanview master suite’s bathroom has a shower, soaking tub and dual sinks.
Other features include a kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances, granite counters, a work island and a breakfast bar.
Steven Schonfeld bought the condo from Manny Haber, who, in turn, bought it from the building’s developer for about $4 million in January 2007 when Bellaria was in the final stages of completion, property records show. The development is just south of the historic Lake Worth Beach oceanfront park and pier.
The full-service development has an exercise room, a full-time manager, a theater room and an oceanfront pool and whirlpool spa.
In March 2019, Miller closed a record-setting, $42.56 million purchase of the entire 24th floor at the top of The Bristol, the new ultra-luxury tower on West Palm Beach’s waterfront at 1100 S. Flagler Drive. Trusts affiliated with Miller bought two side-by-side condos to combine into one unit. Agent Stephen Ploof of Linda A. Gary Real Estate acted on Miller’s behalf in the Bristol purchase opposite a team from Douglas Elliman Real Estate led by Samantha Curry, who worked on the deal with colleagues Chris Leavitt and Marisela Cotilla.
* This story has been updated to reflect the identity of the buyer of Penthouse 4 at 3000 S. Ocean Blvd. in Palm Beach.
Darrell Hofheinz writes about real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column.