How much did a renovated historic house just sell for in Palm Beach?

The updated 1920s-era house on Seaspray Avenue stands in the ocean block of one of the famous “Sea” streets in the heart of town.

A Delaware-registered limited liability company named Morning Dew LLC bought the house.
The house has Southern Colonial-style architecture, with a wide front porch and a second-floor veranda.
The house was renovated after it changed hands in 2016.

An extensively renovated landmarked house dating from Florida’s building boom of the Roaring ’20s has sold for a recorded $13 million in the ocean block of one of Palm Beach’s famous “Sea” streets.

Built in 1920, the Southern Colonial Revival-style house stands at 142 Seaspray Ave. That Midtown street and its neighbors — Seabreeze and Seaview avenues — are among the towns oldest platted residential roads.

The house occupies a midblock lot of a little more than a tenth of an acre on the second street north of Royal Palm Way.

The four-bedroom house has columned front porch and a second-floor veranda above it, both of which run the width of the residence.

With 4,380 square feet of living space, inside and out, the house has a third-floor space that could be used as a bedroom, an office or a “fun zone,” according to the property’s sales listing.

The house was home to Lucas J. and Nancy C. Visconti, who had the property homesteaded as their primary residence in the latest Palm Beach County tax rolls. Renovated by the Viscontis, the house was sold by Mockingbird Home LLC, a Florida limited liability company managed by West Palm Beach real estate attorney Maura Ziska, who signed the deed recorded April 19.

On the buyer’s side was a Delaware-registered limited liability company, Morning Dew LLC, with a mailing address in care of real estate attorney Bradley McPherson at Gunster’s law offices in West Palm Beach, the deed recorded April 19 shows. Because of Delaware’s strict corporate privacy laws, no other information about anyone else connected to the buying entity was immediately available in public records.

The buyer was represented by agent Margit Brandt of Premier Estate Properties. She and McPherson declined to discuss the transaction.

Agent Suzanne Frisbie of the Corcoran Group was the listing agent. She had listed the house at just under $15 million at the end of December and reduced the asking to $13.5 million in mid-January, according to the multiple listing service. The house landed under contract Feb. 11.

Frisbie declined to comment, and her clients could not immediately be reached.

The layout includes a formal living room, a library and an elevator along with a primary bedroom suite with a dressing room, an en-suite bathroom and a private balcony. Palm Beach landscape architect Mario Nievera of Nievera Williams Design designed the grounds.

Luke Visconti is chairman of Fair360, which he founded in 1997 as a media organization “dedicated to workplace fairness in corporate America,” according to a brief online biographical sketch. The West Palm Beach-based company “leverages comparative human capital data to help organizations develop fair and inclusive workplaces using benchmarking and best practices,” its website states.

The renovation was carried out by the homebuilding firm of Shapiro Pertnoy after the house last changed hands in 2016 for a recorded $4.5 million. The new owners then pursued landmark status for the property, which was granted in 2017. That designation protected the exterior walls from significant alteration without the permission of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

According to a report prepared for the landmarks board, the house was designed and built by City Builders Realty Co. in 1920. But a redesign in 1954 by architect Kemp Caler gave it its present look.

When the board endorsed the landmark designation, historical consultant Emily Stillings said the architecture “embodies the feel of a Southern plantation home.”

At that meeting, then-member Page Lee Hufty acknowledged the residence could not be considered among Palm Beach’s most architecturally “powerful” houses. But, she added, “it couldn’t be cuter.”

The “Sea” streets are home to older homes, landmarked houses and newer residences. The latter typically must pass a strict review by the Architectural Commission to ensure that they complement the historical character of the neighborhood.

Courthouse records show Mockingbird Home LLC, the company that sold the residence, had bought a 1950s-era house at 253 Mockingbird Trail for about $3.1 million in July 2015 on the North End of Palm Beach. The same company then sold the Mockingbird Trail property in September 2016 for a recorded $3.12 million.

(This story was updated to add new information.)

This is a developing story. Check back for any updates.

Darrell Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column. He welcomes tips about real estate news on the island. Email [email protected], call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz.

link