Friday, July 11, 2008

Another May-jer Palm Beach Estate on the Block

SELLER: Terry Taylor
LOCATION: S. Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, FL
PRICE: $72,500,000
SIZE: 30,547 (approx. total), 9 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Magnificently restored historic Addison Mizner Estate with 268' of Ocean frontage on approximately 3 acres that include a spectacular beach cabana. Walled and hedged for privacy and security and draped in unsurpassed quality and elegance.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As middle class folks across the U-nited States of America struggle to put gasoline in their automobiles and food on their tables it seems the the parade of palatial Palm Beach mansions being sold for eye popping amounts of money will continue uninterrupted.

Just this year in Palm Beach alone clothing baron and film producer Sidney Kimmel sold his magnificent and modern Thierry Despont designed digs for $77,5000,000 (plus another $4,000,000 for furniture and fittings), and brash and brassy haired real estate tycoon Donald Trump is reported and rumored to have unloaded his uglee ass flip property Maison de l'Amitie to a Russian investor for a bone chilling $100,000,000. Today in the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties column Your Mama read that a Polynesian style house in Palm Beach also quietly transferred this year in a private deal for $68,500,000 and that another humongous house fronting the Atlantic Ocean has just been dumped onto the market with a staggering–but no longer surprising–$72,500,000 asking price.

Located on a three acre lot that stretches 268 gorgeous feet along the sugar sands of the Atlantic Ocean, prop records (and the WSJ) reveal that the newly listed Addison Mizner designed estate is owned by a Florida bizness man and entrepreneur named Terry Taylor who made his millions selling cars. Good lawhd children, Your Mama is in the wrong damn bizness. Here we tap our finger to the nubbins for chicken scratch and this guy is out selling so many Chryslers and Fords he can afford to live in a hotel sized house. All you mommys out there take note: Perhaps it ain't so bad if your child winds a used car sales(wo)man after all.

Anyhoo, property records show the mega-manse measures in a not very modest 26,805 square feet. Additional structures on the lavish spread include a large pool house, a beach cabana and two apartments atop the two three car garages that bring the total to somewhere around 30,547 square feet according to listing information.

The recently rehabbed residence was built in 1924 and includes such dee-luxe (and expected) features as a wine cellar, an exercise room, a private generator (for when the big hurricanes come sweeping through) and a movie thee-ayter that includes a concession stand and a ticket window. Now children, Your Mama can understand that Richie Rich types might crave private movie theaters in their private homes in order to be spared the indignity of having to sit in a public theater with other less fortunate people, but what does anyone need with a damn ticket window and a concession stand? Does he charge his guests 10 damn dollars for the movie and another $49 for popcorn and a soda? Pleeze. If anyone were to ask Your Mama, and no one did, any person with buckets of bank notes who bothers with the time and expense of putting in a ticket booth and/or a concession stand in their private cinema is being fleeced (FLEECED!) by their decorators and contractors who surely giggled themselves all the way to the bank on the backs of your foolish cinematic desires.

Movie theater extravagance aside, perhaps most shocking about this listing is that according to property records, Mister Taylor purchased this princely pile in September of 2003 for $22,200,000. A quick run of the beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus tells us the man is hoping to more than triple his money in just 5 years. That's right children. More. Than. Tripple. Try and swallow that bitter pill as you decide between a Kia and a Hyundai. If Your Mama has said it once, we've said it too many times, one of the many ways the rich get richer is buying and selling high priced properties to one another at heart stopping profits.

None the less, given the apparent demand for extraordinarily expensive properties in Palm Beach, Your Mama would be stoopid to predict anything other than that this house will be sold by the end of the year. Now give us a few minutes to go get our nerve pills before we pass out from flabbergast.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you have to cross the street to get to the beach, or do my eyes deceive me?

StPaulSnowman said...

Does anyone know exactly what the laws are with respect to commoners having access to our country's coastlines, (beaches)? I thought that no one could privately own part of our coastline, hence Doris Duke's hideous chain link privacy fence in Newport.

Anonymous said...

You sure do have to cross the highway. But once there you have access to your own private cabana to relax in. Some lucky uber-rich folks like Conrad & Lady Black have tunnels under the road from their property to the beach so as to avoid the regular hoi polloi millionaires.

Mike Cook said...

Yeah, but, it's still Florida.

Anonymous said...

nice pickup in the driveway

Anonymous said...

Well they say you are not considered a millionaire unless you have a net worth of 50 MM

if that is true then this estate is cheap

Jimmy said...

Nice, considering he bought the place for $22 megabucks in 2003.

Anonymous said...

average Joe - there is a little playground for you on the left.

lil' gay boy said...

It is an Addison Mizner, but…

Too. Damn. Much.

And Mama, in that part of Florida, you can bet your bejeweled abacus he didn't get rich selling Chryslers and Fords to the help.

But no matter how lavish, it's still the land of palmetto bugs…Florida's answer to the NYC cockroach.

;-)

Alessandra said...

There is a path underneath the road, so you can access the beach without having to play Frogger. Unless Mr. Taylor bought the property in some sort of distressed condition three years ago and then did a major renovation, I'm not sure he can justify his asking price. But, my guess is that it will sell for around $10mm of asking, so not less than $65mm. If I had to guess. I understand the appeal of FL, but it is definitely not for me.

Anonymous said...

As of 2003, he had 18 dealerships, one of which is a Chrysler-Jeep dealership in Orlando so he apparently doesn't only deal in expensive cars. It does appear he is also into auto financing, which probably makea him a lot more money than actual sales.

So if there is a Ford dealership in the mix, and selling Ford trucks to the unwashed masses helped make him a millionaire, I'd park one in the driveway too.

Anonymous said...

He paid $30 million for the property not $22 and change. WSJ and your Mama are a little off base.

Anonymous said...

My mother used to own the house next door (to the right in the picture, you can just see the gate entrance and the section of the house that houses a huge 2-story living room...); Prior to the period wherein my mom owned the estate, it was owned by John Lennon & Yoko Ono, and John supposedly wrote several of the songs that appeared on Double Fantasy in that very living room...All the houses in that stretch have cabanas and grassy areas along the beach, but the picture doesn't do a good job of showing that the cabana lawns are actually several feet below road level, so when you're driving on S Ocean Blvd, you just see the Ocean, you don't even know the cabana lawns are there...Having spent several winters in one, Mizners are beautiful but they are kind of oversized and cold, like living in a very comfortable mediteranean-themed museum...No doubt the price might be matched or exceeded, prime Palm Beach real estate is something truly unique in the world and always has and will command top dollar...;-)

Anonymous said...

Sell it to Roman Abramovich......

so_chic_darling said...

I'm sorry but I have no love for any part of south Florida children. If I want sunshine I head for Los Angeles.

Anonymous said...

I heard there are Hurricanes in Florida.

StPaulSnowman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
StPaulSnowman said...

........and leathery creatures with gold jewelry who are not wealthy alligators.

Anonymous said...

Hope he does better with this shack than the house in Fort Lauderdale:

5 Harborage Isle Drive
$5,950,000 on May 28, 2004
S: Terry R Taylor and Cynthia E Taylor

$10,065,000 on September 11, 2002
B: Terry R Taylor and Cynthia E Taylor

Anonymous said...

Well, according to the Palm Beach County Assessor's records

"Sep-2003 15801/0423 $22,200,000 WARRANTY DEED"

the 15801/0423 is the book/page entry in the county records.

PS: if you look at the property from the West there is a nice limo in the driveway

so_chic_darling said...

Limos are not nice they are for showy tacky people only!

Kenny said...

that is really beautiful house, but a bit overpriced. lol

please visit my real estate blog at
www.homesoftherich.blogspot.com

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