Three next-door South End oceanfront properties and an adjacent landlocked parcel have changed hands privately on Blossom Way — for a grand total of nearly $130 million, according to the four deeds recorded at the tail end of December by the Palm Beach County Clerk’s office.
The deeds listed two separate buyers – both Delaware-based limited liability companies — for the properties in the area immediately south of the Bath Tennis Club. It’s unclear whether all of the sales were related.
20 and 30 Blossom Way
Two houses at 20 Blossom Way and 30 Blossom Way sold for a combined $50 million, while a vacant lot and a house at 40 Blossom Way and 50 Blossom Way, respectively, sold for $79.6 million, the clerk’s records show.
The properties changing hands include two sold by entities associated with Mary P. Bolton, the widow of Kenyon C. Bolton II. He was a descendant of the Bingham family that owned the original 17-acre, ocean-to-lake estate named Figulus, built in 1894 and subdivided in the late 1970s to become Blossom Estates.
One of the properties was Mary Bolton’s five-bedroom home on the ocean — with nearly 2 acres of land — at 30 Blossom Way. It sold for a recorded $35.7 million to Black Calabash Family Holdings LLC, according to the deed recorded Friday. The sellers were Bolton and George J. Gillespie III, acting as co-trustees of a trust.
The same company bought the Bolton family’s award-winning vacation house, named Figulus IV, at 20 Blossom Way, just west of the oceanfront property, for a recorded $14.3 million, according to a deed also recorded Friday. The seller in that transaction was an entity called the Figulus IV Partnership. The property measures 1.64 acres, according to property records.
Both houses were completed in 1989 and designed by Bolton’s son, architect Kenyon C. Bolton III. Property records show that the Mediterranean-style oceanfront house has nearly 10,000 square feet of living space, inside and out. Figulus IV, meanwhile, has Old Florida shingle-style architecture along with five bedrooms and 4,376 total square feet.
It’s unclear whether any real estate agencies were involved in the sale of the Bolton properties, because they weren’t listed for sale in the two multiple listing services that serve the island. Black Calabash Family Holdings was identified on the deed with a Boca Raton address in care of David Robbe, who said he had no comment on the matter.
Mary Bolton also said she had no comment on the sales but planned to stay in Palm Beach. “I have no intention of leaving,” she said, adding that her children handled the sale for her.
40 and 50 Blossom Way
Palm Beach broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates said he handled both sides of the sales of the two adjacent oceanfront properties at 40 and 50 Blossom Way, immediately north of No. 30. But he said he had no comment about those transactions or the other two sales in the vicinity.
The buyer that bought No. 40 and No. 50 was PBH LLC, a Delaware limited liability company for which the deed recorded Thursday lists a Miami Beach condominium as the address of its representative, Suzanne Garcia, who could not be reached for comment. That condo is owned by a company linked in public records to Citadel Investments Group, the Chicago asset-management and securities company founded by billionaire Kenneth Griffin, who serves as its CEO.
PBH LLC paid $37.95 million for the five-bedroom house at 50 Blossom Way, according to the price on the deed recorded Thursday. Sellers Walter and Mary Anne McPhail had owned the 14,354-square-foot house – standing on 2.21 acres of land — since May 2000, when they paid $13 million for it, according to property records. It was built in 1985.
PBH LLC also bought 40 Blossom Way, a vacant oceanfront lot measuring a little more than 2 acres immediately south of No. 50, for $41.65 million, the price recorded Friday with the deed. The seller was a trust named after the property, for which real estate attorney Maura Ziska acted as trustee.
Neither No. 40 nor No. 50 was listed in the MLS at the time of the sale.
No. 40 had changed hands within the past two years, however. It sold in May 2011 for a recorded $29.15 million, a sale that turned out to be the highest-dollar Palm Beach deal of that year. Moens represented the trust that bought the property and a 1988 house there, which has since been razed. Cristina Condon of Sotheby’s International Realty acted for the seller, the estate of the late C. Graham Berwind.
Blossom Estate subdivision
All four properties are part of a subdivision developed by Michael Burrows beginning in 1979 on land once owned by Cleveland industrialist Charles W. Bingham. In 1919, Bingham conveyed his estate, Figulus, to one of his daughters, Elizabeth Bingham Blossom. He deeded another parcel to his other daughter, Frances Payne Bingham Bolton.
Figulus IV, the house that just sold at 20 Blossom Way, won the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach’s Ballinger Award in 1991, recognizing its historically sensitive design. Architect Kenyon C. Bolton III signed last week’s deed of sale as the representative of the Figulus IV Partnership. He could not be reached for comment.