On the market near Palm Beach: A $29M furnished condo at The Bristol has 'hypnotic' views

You might say a view brought Cindy Bardes Galvin and her husband, Christopher, to The Bristol, the ultra-luxury condominium tower in West Palm Beach.

But that view wasn’t from their 22nd-floor condo, although their sky-high residence offers undeniably extravagant vistas of Palm Beach, the Intracoastal Waterway, the Atlantic Ocean and the city of West Palm Beach.

No, the view that led them to The Bristol was from another condominium. That lakefront apartment in Palm Beach on South Lake Drive looked west to where The Bristol was under construction.

“My husband would sit at his desk in his office at our condo and watch the Bristol go up. He said to me, ‘I think you’ll love it. It has first-class services. I’m going to look at it,’” recalls Cindy Galvin, an interior designer whose family has deep ties to Palm Beach.

“I told him I am not going to live in a glass box in the sky. But he always found our houses and has good taste. So, I said that we’d try it. He knew how to hook me into my strengths,” she says about Christopher, a private equity investor who left Motorola, his family’s business, in the early 2000s.

“It was fun to look at the (Bristol’s) blueprints and plans,” she adds.

She found a floor plan with east, south and west views that appealed to her. It is one of just three apartments on the floor: “You see 270 degrees of water and land. The views are jaw dropping,” she says.

The Bristol was completed in 2019 at 1100 S. Flagler Drive. Because the Galvins bought their condo while the tower was under construction, Cindy was able to use her design talents to customize the interiors.

By adding walls to the open-floorplan space, she created a five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath chic cosmopolitan showplace, with 7,240 square feet of living space, inside and out.

“Because we bought early enough, I made more rooms. In essence, it’s a one-off,” she says. “The apartment works really well, and the ceilings are 11 feet high. The views are hypnotic and it’s a wonderful feature to have that much light — you feel like you are outside all day,” she adds.

But the design project was not without challenges.

“It’s a modern building and we are not modern-(style) people. I had to figure out how to make this glass box into a home for my husband,” she explains.

She solved that dilemma by choosing appropriately-scaled furniture and luxurious wallcoverings and fabrics, many handcrafted by artisans from around the world.

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The Galvins were more than pleased with the final result and moved into the condo in November 2021. They also appreciated the white-glove services offered at The Bristol. But Cindy later decided that a single-family home would be a better fit for them to host their children and grandchildren, so in June 2022, they moved back to Palm Beach into a home on Gulfstream Road.

As such, they’ve listed their condo, No. 22C, with Brown Harris Stevens agents Patrice McInerney and Sylvia James. The price is $29 million, which includes the furniture but not the artwork or some personal items.

From the foyer, one enters the living room, with its views to the east and south of the Intracoastal and the Atlantic.

A hallway leads to the main bedroom suite on the apartment’s east side, which comprises the bedroom, a bedroom/study, two bathrooms and walk-in closets. The formal dining room and the family room, adjacent to the living room on the south side of the unit, also has views of the ocean and Intracoastal. The kitchen is open to the family room.

On the west side of the apartment are Cindy’s office and two guest bedroom suites, which offer views of West Palm Beach.

All the major rooms access the wraparound balcony.

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With 24 residential floors, the 69-unit Bristol provides amenities that include an on-site professional concierge, 24-hour valet and front-desk personnel. Residents also have available to them a pair of in-house vehicles with a driver. The building has a gated entrance, two spas, a beauty salon, a waterfront fitness center, a 75-foot resort-style swimming pool, a club lounge and a dog park.

“We’ve already moved, but I miss the light and the views,” Cindy says. “The building is so well managed, and the people are wonderful. It was a wonderful way to live.”

She takes a tiny pause.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be selling this.”

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To see more photos of condominium 22C at The Bristol, click on the photo gallery at the top of this page.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Florida real estate: Luxe furnished condo near Palm Beach asks $29M