Which billionaire lifestyle maven has renovated a historic house near her parents in Palm Beach?

Billionaire lifestyle guruAerin Lauder opened her Palm Beach home to Architectural Digest for a lavish spread in its latest issue — and in the process made it clear that she had been on the buyer’s side of a deal in late 2020 in which a house near the beach on Via Bethesda changed hands for a recorded $20.2 million.

The address of the landmarked house isn’t included in the Architectural Digest article, but it’s clear from photos, the article and quotes from Lauder herself that she bought and then remodeled 124 Via Bethesda in Midtown.

Another key clue? The house is directly across the street from the oceanfront mansion owned by her parents, Jo Carole and Ronald Lauder. Billionaire Ronald Lauder is the son of the late cosmetics pioneer Estée Lauder, who had deep ties to Palm Beach.

Estée Lauder was Aerin Lauder’s grandmother.

The house she shares with her financier husband, Eric Zinterhofer, and their family is “close, but not too close” to her parents, Aerin Lauder quipped in the article. She told writer Mitchell Owens she had long admired the house on Via Bethesda.

The entrepreneur is the style and image director of The Estée Lauder Cos., where her father and other family members are executives.

But she also sells home furnishings, accessories, beauty products, apparel and other items through her own Aerin brand, including at her eponymous store in Via Mizner in Palm Beach. Forbes estimates her net worth at $2.7 billion.

When it sold in December 2020, the house on Via Bethesda had seven bedrooms and 10,505 square feet of living space, inside and out. Abutting The Breakers’ golf course, it stands on a lot measuring more than a half-acre, one house west of the beach.

The house was designed by the late noted architect Howard Major and completed in 1930. In addition to the main residence, the property includes a separate pool house and outbuildings.

SIZABLE DONATION: Two generations of Palm Beach's Lauder family give $200 million to Alzheimer's drug research

With French-inspired architecture, the main house features an exterior clad in Cuban limestone along with shuttered French doors and iron grillwork. The house has a long gallery — with a sunroom above it — facing the garden side of the property. The front motor court is covered in Belgian marble. The town granted the house landmark protection in 1990.

Aerin Lauder worked closely with interior designer Stephen Sills on redecorating the house. The renovation was overseen by Smith Architectural Group principal architect Jeff Smith, chairman of the Palm Beach Architectural Commission. Landscape architect Mario Nievera of Nievera Williams Landscape Design drew up plans for the grounds.

Lauder bought the house through a New York-registered limited liability company named after its address, property records show. The ownership entity cloaked her involvement in the sale when it closed in December 2020.

Broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate, who handled the buyer’s side of the sale in 2020, never identified his client for the Palm Beach Daily News. The seller was also a bit of mystery, a Florida entity — also named after the property's address — for which real estate attorney Maura Ziska signed the deed as president.

Ziska declined to comment about the deal. The seller was represented by Douglas Elliman Real Estate agent Chris Leavitt, who co-listed the property with his Elliman colleague Ashley McIntosh. They also have kept mum.

The seller in the 2020 deal had bought the house in 2017 from McIntosh’s parents, retired businessman Henry “Rip” McIntosh IV and his late wife, Susan, who had owned it for 36 years.

FROM THE 2020 ARCHIVES: Palm Beach landmarked house fetches $20.2 million on Via Bethesda

The house is the first home Aerin Lauder has owned in Palm Beach, she told Architectural Digest. She and her family previously stayed with her parents on visits. Her billionaire uncle, Leonard Lauder, and his wife, Judy, reside in a mansion next door to the home of Aerin Lauder’s parents.

Aerin Lauder’s billionaire cousin and Estée Lauder Executive Chairman William P. Lauder has made Palm Beach real estate news of his own over the past few years. In March, he used an ownership company to buy, for a recorded $155 million, the North End oceanfront compound of the late conservative firebrand Rush Limbaugh. That estate is anchored by a beachfront house at 1495 N. Ocean Blvd.

William Lauder also has listed for sale two adjacent vacant oceanfront lots at 1063/1071 N. Ocean Blvd. for $200 million, offered by Premier Estate Properties agent Jim McCann. Last fall, he tore down a mansion he had bought at No. 1071 for a price said to be $110 million, making it the most-expensive teardown in Palm Beach history.

CELEBRITY LISTING IN PALM BEACH: Fox News' Bret Baier asking $16.5M for Palm Beach home he bought for $12M in 2022

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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. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Which billionaire has redone a house near her parents in Palm Beach?