New $59M house listing in Palm Beach shows how pricing evolved during the pandemic

A new $59 million listing for an oceanfront house facing Midtown Beach is a spot-on example of how pricing has evolved in Palm Beach in the years since the coronavirus hit town in early 2020.

During the first years of the pandemic, it wasn’t unusual to see properties sell for double — and sometimes even more — than what the sellers paid for them just a year or so earlier.

And although real estate activity has cooled substantially since the height of the boom, asking prices for waterfront properties in many cases have not. That’s the case with the new listing of the 2018 house with Bermuda-inspired architecture at 200 S. Ocean Blvd.

At nearly $60 million, the price tag is about twice the one the property carried when it briefly entered the market at $30 million in October 2019, just five months before the World Health Organization declared that the COVID-19 health crisis was a pandemic.

Seaside houses remain rare birds in Palm Beach’s real estate market, and the new price reflects that rarity, said listing agent Jim McCann of Premier Estate Properties.

“There are very few in-town oceanfront homes available for sale,” McCann said Friday. “This is a beautifully constructed home, built as a custom home for the present owners.”

Only three other Palm Beach houses are priced higher than the one McCann just listed, according to an online search Friday of the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.

At the corner of Seabreeze Avenue, the house’s lot is across the coastal road from its equally sized landscaped beach parcel, and together they total about an acre. The house was built by owners Becky Gochman, an equestrian, and David H. Gochman, a businessman and investor who once owned a chain of sporting-goods stores.

The four-bedroom house and separate two-bedroom guesthouse have 8,948 square feet of living space, inside and out. Although the beach parcel is vacant, the town’s zoning code would allow the buyer to build a cabana and swimming pool there.

Vero Beach architects Peter Moor and Chris Baker designed the residence with vintage touches to complement a Bermuda-style home immediately to the south, also designed by the principals of Moor, Baker & Associates.

The house was built by longtime Palm Beach contractor Tim Givens to withstand the effects of time and weather, McCann said.

“There’s no plywood in this house,” McCann said, referring to the construction materials. “There are no (wood) roof trusses. Instead, there is a poured-concrete roof. I think that the house will be there longer than anyone who is now living in Palm Beach.”

The Gochmans chose natural materials for the interior finishes, including antique oak flooring, cypress doors, and hardware and fixtures made of brass, bronze and copper. The house's layout includes formal living and dining spaces along with a screened porch overlooking the pool and gardens. The poolside cabana has a fireplace, McCann’s listing says.

The east side of the house features a long front porch with a railed sundeck above it. Multiple windows with shutters look across to a beach. The house, McCann says, “is perfect for black-tie and barefoot living.”

In late 2020, the Gochmans sold their other Palm Beach house at 162 Atlantic Ave. on the near North End for $7.123 million, property records show.

When plans for the South Ocean Boulevard house were first reviewed by the Architectural Commission, the board was told the owners wanted the house to blend in with the historic neighborhood, one of the oldest platted areas in Palm Beach.  But the house’s architecture also has “crisp and modern” design elements, according to McCann’s listing, which entered the MLS on Feb. 5.

In a phone interview when the house was listed in 2019, Moor described its style as “Palm Beach Bermuda,” noting that the architecture has a few playful Mediterranean-influenced touches. The Gochmans razed a 1920s-era house and guesthouse on the South Ocean Boulevard property after buying it nearly 10 years ago for a recorded $15.38 million.

McCann was not involved in the May 2014 deal. Broker Christian J. Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate had the listing opposite opposite Jack Elkins and Bunny Hiatt, then of the old Fite Shavell & Associates, which is today William Raveis South Florida.

In the Gochmans’ November 2020 sale of their 1920s-era house on Atlantic Ave., they were represented by McCann. Agents Chris Stutts and Thomas Liepman of K2 Realty acted on behalf of the buyers, energy businessman Sam Youneszadeh and his wife, Kimberly Honig, a hedge-fund executive.

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Portions of the story appeared previously in the Palm Beach Daily News.

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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: Seaside house in Palm Beach lists at $59M, nearly twice the 2019 price