Fox's Bret Baier buys Palm Beach house for $37 million in private deal

Fox News’ host Bret Baier appears to be upsizing in Palm Beach, having just paid a recorded $37 million for an ocean-block house on Wells Road. The house is about a mile away from the smaller home Baier and his wife, Amy, bought early last year from fashion designer and real estate investor Tommy Hilfiger.

Baier bought the house at 125 Wells Road as trustee of a trust in his full name, William B. Baier, according to the deed recorded Friday for the off-market sale.

Baier purchased the house on Wells Road from longtime Palm Beach resident Roberta Weiner, whose husband is Boston real estate developer Stephen R. Weiner. He founded S.R. Weiner & Associates and co-founded WS Development and Weiner Ventures.

Roberta Weiner sold the house “individually” and as trustee of the 125 Wells Road Land Trust, the deed says.

The Palm Beach Daily News was the first media outlet to report the sale.

Bret Baier hosts Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” and is the news division’s chief political anchor. Before that, he was the network's chief White House correspondent and Pentagon correspondent.

Built in 1992, the house Baier just bought had not changed hands since 2013, when it sold for recorded $10.95 million, property records show. After their purchase, the Weiners extensively renovated the house, records show.

The Wells Road house has five bedrooms and 7,798 square feet of living space, inside and out, property records show. That’s about 2,300 square feet larger than the house the Baiers bought for a recorded $12 million from Hilfiger’s ownership company in early 2022 at 244 Fairview Road. The Baiers have the Fairview Road house, which was completed in 2021, listed for sale at $16.495 million.

The house on Wells Road was developed by the late developer Robert Gottfried in his signature Palm Beach Regency style on a lot measuring about three-fifths of an acre. On the near North End, the house is the fourth property west of the beach on a street about a half-mile north of The Breakers golf course.

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A previous sales listing shows the house on Wells Road has many of the classically inspired architectural signatures of Gottfried-built houses, including a clean-lined silhouette and a front porch with columns supporting a triangular pediment.

The two-story residence has generously proportioned rooms with 14-foot ceilings, multiple windows and large expanses of glass doors fitted with impact-resistant glass. The layout includes formal living and dining rooms, a family room, a library and an exercise room, according to the previous sales listing, which noted that rooms are appointed with custom moldings and millwork. The expansive primary-bedroom suite has two bathrooms.

A covered loggia faces the backyard and the 40-by-20-foot swimming pool, which is set amid formal landscaping.

Broker Christian Angle is said to have acted on behalf of Bret Baier in the Wells Road deal. Angle and Baier could not be immediately reached for comment.

Agents Paulette Koch and Dana Koch of the Corcoran Group handled the sellers’ side, according to sources familiar with the transaction. Dana Koch declined to comment.

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Stephen Weiner has developed shopping centers, mixed-use projects and other real estate developments in the Boston area since the early 1980s.

Roberta Weiner bought the house on Wells Road from Carol Lee “Leezy” Sculley, who once shared it with ex-husband John Sculley, a former CEO of Apple and a former chairman of Pepsico.

In September 2015, the Weiners set what was then a price record for an oceanfront condominium when they sold their renovated two-bedroom unit at 2 N. Breakers Row for a recorded $12 million to a Boston-based trust. In 2021, the trust sold that apartment — No. N-31, with 3,245 total square feet — for a recorded $12.08 million.

Angle holds the listing for the three-bedroom Bermuda-style house the Baiers are selling on Fairview Road. They bought it in February 2022 from a limited liability company controlled by Hilfiger and his wife, handbag designer Dee Ocleppo Hilfiger.

The Hilfigers had used a limited liability company named Villa Deniz LLC to buy the Fairview Road House house for a recorded $9 million in March 2021 when it was brand new. The Hilfigers, who have two other homes in Palm Beach, this year flipped, for a recorded $41.38 million, a landmarked estate they bought as an investment property on South Ocean Blvd.

The Bermuda-style, two-story house on Fairview Road has 4,970 square feet of living space, inside and out, records show. It stands on a lot of about a quarter-acre on a road bordering the south end of the Palm Beach Country Club.

Angle handled both sides of the 2021 deal when the Baiers bought the house on Fairview Road from the Hilfiger-controlled company. Angle listed it for sale in early June, the multiple listing service shows.

When Roberta Weiner bought the house on Wells Road in 2013, broker Linda Gary of Linda A. Gary Real Estate represented her in the off-market deal. Gary also handled both sides of the 2015 sale when the Weiners sold the Breakers Row apartment.

Gary previously had marketed the Wells Road house at $23 million but the listing was withdrawn from the MLS in March 2020, records show.

Baier isn’t the only Fox News host who owns property in Palm Beach. Conservative firebrand Sean Hannity owns a townhouse, which he bought for a recorded $5.3 million in April 2021, in the Residences at Sloan’s Curve on the South End.

dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com

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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: Fox's Bret Bair buys Palm Beach house for $37 million near the ocean