Wednesday, November 14, 2007

C.C. Wang's Palm Beach Estate

SELLER: The Estate of C.C. Wang
LOCATION: Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, FL
PRICE: $23,000,000
SIZE: 9,706 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 9 full and 1 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Mizner oceanfront estate, Villa Tranquila, located in the prestigious estate section of Palm Beach features a formal living room with fireplace, family room with fireplace and wet bar, formal dining room with 2 fireplaces, master suite with fireplace and his and her baths, guest bedroom with private balcony, fireplace and spectacular ocean views unobstructed by the road, elevator, fitness room, magnificent heated pool, 5 fountains, 3-car garage and a 12 car-park court.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Ever since the death of bridal maven Vera Wang's oil and pharmaceutical tycoon daddy Cheng Ching Wang, we've been discussing the real estate whirligig that has ensued. Whispered speculation could be heard in the better buildings up and down posh Park Avenue as to what would happen to the elder Wang's vast duplex occupying a prominent corner on the 10th and 11th floors of the hyper luxe 740 Park Avenue. The duplex, purchased in 1983 for just $350,000 from Campbell's soup heiress Elinor Dorrance, has sat empty and lonely since Mrs. Florence Wu Wang passed in 1995. At that time, according to recent reports, the Beijing born bizness man purchased and moved to a somewhat smaller 3 bedroom apartment up the Avenue at 820 Park, which has since been sold.

As it turns out, the desirable duplex at swank 740 was purchased from the estate by none other than Vera Wang and her huzband Arthur Becker for $23,100,000, who have also gone to contract to sell their full floor spread up the Avenue at 778 Park that was listed at a whopping $35,000,000. So all the lacquer haired biddies and hedge fund honchos who shack up at 740 can rest easy knowing they've simply swapped one rich Wang for another rich Wang.

Yesterday we discussed C.C. Wang's Westchester County residence in swank and sylvan Pound Ridge, north of New York City. Available to lease at $25,000 per month, the 33 acre property offers total seclusion, a private 8 acre pond, and a kooky but appealing 1970s era contemporary house filled with white sofas and Chinese vases. We're still puzzled at so why the place is for lease and not for sale. Or is it?

Today, thanks to enterprising tipster Billy Blabbermouth, Your Mama brings the children the Palm Beach estate of C.C. Wang, which has also been put up for sale with an asking price of $23,000,000. That might sound like an awful lot of money for a pretty house with an uninspired and dated interior, but children this is plushy Palm Beach, playground of filthy rich and extremely privileged blue blooded scions, magnates, and financiers where all the standard real estate rules for home prices do not apply.

According to property records, the 9,706 square foot Addison Mizner designed ocean front estate, dubbed "Villa Tranquila," was purchased by C.C. Wang in February 1996 for $4,750,000, so if the property sells for anywhere near it's asking price, the estate's coffers will balloon with a hefty return on Mister Wang's wise real estate investment.

Listing and property record information for the house show the sprawling and fanciful Mediterranean style house includes 5 bedrooms, and 9 full and 1 half bathrooms, which means that a full time gurl is necessary to keep all 10 of them terlits clean and sparkling. But if you can afford this house, then paying a gurl to hold a damn terlit brush in her hand 24 hours a day is not a problem.

Clearly Mister C.C. Wang did not hire a nice gay decorator to do up his Palm Beach getaway, and apparently he did not ask his suave and stylish daughter to help him pick out the furniture either. All due respect to the dead, but most of the interior furnishings in this house look like Mister C.C. Wang sent his household staff down to the local Salvation Army to buy up a houseful drab hand-me-downs donated by all the Palm Beach behatchas who decorate and redecorate just to have something to do with their time.

Now babies, we know that when ol' C.C. bought this mansion he was already up in years and probably didn't care much for wasting money on pedigreed pedestals and costly commodes, but that is no excuse for that pair of obscene beige bucket chairs in the room with the too big television shoved into the corner and pickled wood walls and ceiling. Vera, hunny, you should have instructed the staff to sneak those abominations out to the dumpster in the middle of the night while yer daddy was sleeping. Seriously, those "chairs" have no place in a ritzy enclave like Palm Beach or in a house of this quality and caliber anywhere. Gurl, you know Your Mama is right on that.

However, we feel entirely differently about those two gorgeous leather chairs in front of the fireplace and the two 1940s looking chairs with the white seats and lovely curving backs in the big living room. We can imagine those might find a place into Miz Wang's new digs at 740. Or perhaps if Miz Wang does not care to keep them, she might allow Your Mama could find a place for them in one of our residences?

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is the true value of the apt at 740 Park though? $23M is just to purchase her Brothers share in the estate so is the true value up towards $40M?

Anonymous said...

Six fireplaces and a heated pool?

I agree that the tub chairs look out of place. They look like IKEA.

Anonymous said...

Am I naive in hoping that all the money from these sales are going into a trust and then donated to good causes?? I can't even fathom what this family "needs" with so much money!!

Anonymous said...

Mama, I love your blog and everything but sometimes I think you are way too critical of other people's decor. I don't see what's so horrible about the interior of this house.

Anonymous said...

Mama, help! I've been locked out of the house. Blogger won't let me log on, but I crawled through the doggie door. I can't get enough of the Wangs and their property. This house looks like something a lonely old man would buy. "Vewah, I don't cawe if it wook wike shit. I never spend winter in New York again. You want see me, you come here. Now I go to beach." What is that wood on the walls and ceiling? Me no like.

Memo to ms frivolity: The rogue plastic surgeon story has already been done. But maybe you can juice it up.

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Anonymous said...

8.55

why the hell should they donate it all to good causes? there are far far wealthier families on this planet, yeah, the wangs appear to be wealthy but not ridiculously so & like most wealthy families i'm pretty sure they already donate generously to individual charities. Hoping that they donate it all to good causes is just stupid, isn't it more important to set up trusts to ensure future generations are financially secure? you know, family first & all that ...

Anonymous said...

How is it possible that the Wangs paid only $350,000 for that duplex in 1983? Was the New York market *that* bad?

My parents sold a small house in Brentwood (California) for the same amount in the early 80s. And it definitely didn't seem like Park Avenue co-op money.

Anonymous said...

Mama topped her sweet self on this one! I just HAD TO find the original listing. Oh my yes, those leather chairs at the fireplace are tres fabulous, especially at 200% zoom. Panning along, I gasped and blew just-sipped coffee out my nose onto the computer screen. Atop the vintage big-screen, do I really see three DVD players, stack of movies and a video game joy stick? Still in the rumpus room, is that a screaming blue neck roll pillow adorning the otherwise tranquil and lovely down-filled easy chair? Who didn't warn the live-in caretaker they were coming with their disposable camera without a flash? This is (cough-unfortunate-cough) pictorial odyssey. Priceless.

Anonymous said...

NY market was bad until 2001, I remember when you could get an apartment building for 4MM with 30 units in manhattan.

There was a lot of crime there, then after 2001 it all changed.

You could even get a condo with a view of central park for 250k, 2 bedroom, I was offered to buy it at that price in 2000, I should have jumped on it, I could have also bought a condo on doheny and sunset for 100k with a view of the city.

I was an idiot, what can I say, that same condo now is 700k.

If this market drops back down to 2000 prices I am buying.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Jones, why dont'cha shut up already....you don't know what you're talking about, your price estimates past, present and future are all way off from reality!

Anonymous said...

LA was bad in the 90's, MR. Jones, I'll give you that, but the NYC market you obviously know nothing about...maybe it was that cheap in the 70's & early 80's, but since the mid-90's Manhattan has been on-fire...I agree you don't know what you're talking about! Your future predictions on some other posts are also way too pessimistic!!! If you're to be believed, we all might as well shoot ourselves in the heads, because an 80% drop in home values would lead to a cratering of the world economy and life as we know it!

Anonymous said...

"NY market was bad until 2001"

"You could even get a condo with a view of central park for 250k"

OMG! You're way off Dude ...

My Parents sold their Co-op on C.P.W in 2001 - Multiply your '250k' by 40 then you're closer to the price they sold for.

Stop talking rubbish!

Anonymous said...

Also,

"There was a lot of crime there, then after 2001 it all changed"

Eh - No! Crime rates had fallen drastically way before 2001 ... Have you ever actually bn to N.Y? Giuliani changed N.Y & he was elected in 1994 so to say crime was bad until 2001 is just utterly ridiculous!

Anonymous said...

I don't like it.

Anonymous said...

the wood treatment is NOT a pickled process. it's pecky cypress.