Palm Beach's biggest recorded deal of the 2009 just happens to be the recent sale of Tampa Bay Bucs owner Malcolm Glazer's oceanfront La Bellucia home, a 12,000-square-foot spread on 3.8 acres, for a cool $24 million. The buyer? Los Angeles real estate investor and billionaire Jeff Greene. The sale was first reported by the Palm Beach Daily News. Here's the story.
La Bellucia is a landmarked oceanfront Addison Mizner-designed house at 1200 S. Ocean Blvd with nine bedrooms, nine-and-a-half-bathrooms. According to the newspaper, it had a price tag of $27.5 million and was on the market for less than 30 days. Willey J. Kingsley, a physician and capitalist in Rome, N.Y., built the home in 1924 and named it Beautiful Lucy after his wife, Lucy.
Glazer’s company, First Allied Jacksonville Corp., bought it in July 2000 for $14 million. The Glazers originally sought permission to demolish the main house and then, later, to bring the entire property back to its former grandeur, local realtors say. But they later decided against the renovations and chose to remain in their current home nearby, also on Palm Beach’s Billionaire’s Row.
Jeff Green Greene, became a billionaire by betting, correctly, in 2006 against the subprime mortgage market.