New sales strategy: Billionaire W. Lauder prices adjacent beachfront lots at $88.9M each

Estée Lauder billionaire William P. Lauder is taking a different tack to selling the 2.34 acres of vacant beachfront land he owns on the North End of Palm Beach.

A new sales listing shows he is marketing the land as two separate, equally sized parcels for $88.9 million each.

Each of the side-by-side lots measures about 1.17 acres with 180 feet of direct oceanfront.

“These are phenomenal and scarce oceanfront properties in Palm Beach,” said broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate, who listed the lots for sale late Thursday afternoon.

“This is a really rare opportunity,” Angle added during a brief phone interview.

Angle’s sales listing described the lots’ “fantastic and peaceful North End location” as a place to “build your dream Palm Beach estate.”

The lots lie about two-fifths of a mile north of the Palm Beach Country Club.

The lots — addressed as 1063 and 1071 N. Ocean Blvd. — were previously marketed as a single parcel for $200 million by a different agency. That price made them the most expensive land listing ever on the island.

Lauder razed 6-year-old beachfront mansion on the property in 2022

Lauder grabbed headlines in the October 2022 when his crews demolished a 36,000-square-foot, 6-year-old mansion on the northern portion of the property at 1071 N. Ocean Blvd. At the time, the mansion’s lot was about twice the size of the lot at No. 1063.

Lauder’s ownership company had purchased No. 1071 in late 2021 in a deal said to be valued at more than $110 million, although the transaction was structured so that the sale price never appeared in public records. The demolition, first reported by the Palm Beach Daily News, made the mansion the most expensive tear-down ever on the island at the time.

When the house was razed, a company controlled by Lauder already owned the smaller vacant lot immediately to the south at No. 1063. The billionaire had bought an outdated house there for a recorded $25.37 million in May 2020 and then razed it. Although he won the town’s permission to build his own home on the smaller lot, he never broke ground on the project.

Lauder is now reportedly planning a new home on land once occupied by the estate of the late ultra-conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. A Lauder-controlled company bought the former Limbaugh estate through a limited liability company for a recorded $155 million last year and demolished it, setting a new tear-down price record. The price Lauder paid for the Limbaugh property, meanwhile, briefly set a new Palm Beach residential sale-price record.

Billionaire Lauder has deep family ties to Palm Beach

Lauder is executive chairman of The Estée Lauder Cos., the cosmetics empire founded by and named for his grandmother. His net worth is estimated at $2.3 billion by Forbes.com.

Lauder is a son of Leonard Lauder and the late Evelyn Lauder. The Lauder family has deep roots in Palm Beach.

William Lauder could not be reached immediately for comment.

The lots first entered the market about a year ago, listed as one subdividable property by agent Jim McCann of Premier Estate Properties. His listing recently expired.

Angle is well familiar with the property. He held the listing for the since-razed mansion at 1071 N. Ocean Blvd. when its original owner first put it on the market in 2015. But he was no longer involved with the estate when the mansion sold for a recorded $40.87 million in 2019.

Few beachfront properties are in the land category of the MLS

Only one oceanfront property is listed at a higher price than each of Lauder's lots right now in the land category of the Palm Beach Board of Relators Multiple Listing Service. But unlike the Lauder lots, that property of about 2 acres at 1980 S. Ocean Blvd. — priced at $150 million — has frontage on the Intracoastal Waterway. Already sudivided into two parcels, the listing at 1980 S. Ocean Blvd. is held by agent Shelly Newman of the Corcoran Group.

Also in the MLS’s land category is a direct-oceanfront listing, priced at $74.5 million, for a vacant lot of about 1.25 acres at 965 N. Ocean Blvd., listed by broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates.

And on Friday, an oceanfront house at 240 S. Ocean Blvd. that had already been marketed among the single-family listings of the MLS for $39 million entered the land category at the same price. Agent Elizabeth DeWoody of Compass Florida has the listing for that property, which comprises about two-fifths of an acre.

In the 2019 sale of the mansion at 1071 N. Ocean Blvd., agents Ashley McIntosh, Gary Pohrer and Vince Spadea of Douglas Elliman Real Estate were the listing agents. Moens acted for the buyer, a limited liability company linked to financier Tom Salice. Salice later sold it to Lauder in the 2021 off-market transaction.

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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 dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com, call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Billionaire markets 2 beachfront lots at $88.9M each in Palm Beach