As island real estate brokers report a busier-than-usual start to the summer, sales are pending for two Palm Beach properties with price tags of $6 million or more, according to recent status changes in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.
One is in Midtown, a landmarked 1927 house that has been on the market for four years at 153 Clarke Ave. Offered in 2010 at nearly $7 million, the Mediterranean-style house with pecky-cypress ceilings and Cuban tile floors was last priced at $6 million by Brown Harris Stevens agent Lisa Bellocchio, who says she has had the listing for three years.
The longtime home of the late John J. and Mary Ann Kirlin, the four-bedroom house is owned by the couple’s four adult children, Palm Beach County property records show. The property has a guest apartment over the detached garage and in all offers nearly 9,000 square feet of living space, inside and out.
Meanwhile, Corcoran Group agents Paulette Koch and Dana Koch have a contract in place for a five-bedroom, two-story house at 302 Caribbean Road near the northern tip of the island. The mother-and-son sales duo had listed the house for sale last November at $7.495 million, later dropping the price by $100,000.
The sales listing describes the house’s “chef’s kitchen,” high ceilings, intricate millwork and easy-flowing floorplan, with French doors overlooking landscaped grounds and a 40-foot swimming pool.
Property records show Thomas D. Mottola and Ariadna Sodi Miranda bought the house for $6 million in June 2008, the same year it was completed. Wittmann Building Corp. had developed it as a “spec” house with 8,657 square feet of living space, inside and out.
The listing agents are keeping mum about their clients and specific details about the deals. So there’s no word yet about when the sales will close or the selling prices, nor the buyers’ identities.
Price reduced — Just like beachgoers readying for summer swimsuit season, some Palm Beach property prices have also been shedding a little extra weight, as homeowners and their real estate agents hope to peak buyers’ interest in the off-season.
Agent Lucy “Peaches” Bauer of Barrett Welles Property Group late in the season sliced a cool half-million bucks off the price of her six-bedroom, five-bathroom listing at 136 Woodbridge Road in the Estate Section.
Bauer is marketing what’s described as a “firm” price of $2.995 million for the Mediterranean-style house, which has about 5,268 square feet of living space, inside and out, and stands in the middle of the block on the street that runs immediately north of The Mar-a-Lago Club. She has also dropped the price to lease the residence to $15,000 a month, describing the house in her sales listing as having “outstanding income potential.”
After getting the listing in April of last year, Bauer put the house back on the market in October with a price of $3.499 million, according to the island’s multiple listing service.
Russell J. Balasco has owned the 1959 house since 1994, when he bought it from the estate of the late Liliane C. Loomis for $595,000, according to property records. Balasco completed a renovation two years later.
The house comes with deeded beach access and privileges for its new buyer at The Mar-a-Lago Club, thanks to club owner Donald Trump’s longtime deal worked out for adjacent homeowners: They can pay for a club membership without having to cough up big bucks for the initiation fee. That’s a convenient perk, considering the wording of Bauers’ sales listing: “Walk through the garden straight into Mar-A-Lago.”
The write stuff — Palm Beach interior designer Leta Austin Foster is contributing twice-a-month articles to the Designer Marketplace blog (WSIDesignerMarketplace.com) run by upscale kitchen and housewares retailer Williams-Sonoma. A new entry is set to go online any day now, says Foster, who already writes regularly for her own blog, DecoratingWithSheets.com.
Darrell Hofheinz writes about real estate and edits Home Loggia. He welcomes news items about Palm Beach real estate for this column. E-mail dhofheinz@pbdailynews or call 820-3831.