Peek inside: Jimmy Buffett's 3 Palm Beach homes are now for sale, includes music studio

The three modest houses where the late Jimmy Buffett of “Margaritaville” fame kicked back when he was in Palm Beach have hit the market on Root Trail, a historic street with immediate beach access.

On both sides of Root Trail, the houses are priced individually between $6.124 million and $7.25 million, with a grand total of about $20 million for all three.

The Palm Beach Daily News’ website broke the news of the listings on July 12, the day they entered the multiple listing service.

Buffett — who with his widow, Jane, bought and sold other houses in Palm Beach, including an oceanfront mansion across town — assembled a compound of sorts on the North End’s Root Trail. The oldest house stands on the south side of the street, with the two others just opposite it on the north side. Together, the lots measure less than a fifth of an acre.

Buffett once told The Palm Beach Post he prized Palm Beach’s small-town atmosphere and the deeply entrenched aura of privacy the wealthy island offers its residents.

“I can walk around with shocking anonymity. People don’t know who I am,” Buffett said in 2015. 

Jimmy Buffett died of skin cancer in September 2023, at 76

The singer and businessman died of skin cancer in September at 76 . He left legions of shocked and saddened fans devoted to him and his music, including his iconic songs “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and “Come Monday.”

In 2002, Buffett used his real estate ownership company to buy his first house on Root Trail. The one-story wood-frame bungalow at 138 Root Trail was built sometime between 1900 and 1915, town records show. The town designated the house a landmark in 2018, protecting its exterior walls from significant alteration without the permission of the local landmarks board.

Priced at $7.25 million, the house changed hands 22 years ago for $802,000.

Surrounded by a picket fence, the two-bedroom bungalow has a separate one-bedroom building that Buffett used as a music studio. Among the main house’s features is a window-lined porch that runs nearly the width of the street-side facade. There’s also a rear patio — with two outdoor showers — where a guesthouse once stood.

With many period details intact, the clean-lined interiors have Dade County pine plank floors, ceilings with exposed beams, and a skylight in the well-equipped kitchen.

The house was originally built on block piers and surfaced with wood clapboard siding. It is one of the oldest examples of so-called “frame vernacular” buildings in Palm Beach, and the scarcity of those that add to its significance, according to a report prepared as part of the landmarking process in 2018.

In 2013, Buffett added to his Root Trail holdings by buying two side-by-side houses across the street. Addressed as units A and B at 135 Root Trail, their two-story architecture is reminiscent of homes in Key West, another Florida town where Buffett had deep connections.

Unit A has three bedrooms and 2,450 total square feet, property records show. It’s priced at $6.65 million. Priced at $6.125 million, Unit B has two-bedrooms and 2,660 total square feet. Each of the properties has 2,101 square feet under air-conditioning, their sales listings show.

Connected by a brick-paved breezeway, the houses at No. 135 were once part of a two-building apartment complex dating from at least the 1920s. They were converted by developers more than a decade ago into separate single-family houses connected by a breezeway and courtyard.

Buffett bought the houses at No. 135 in separate transactions using his ownership company, courthouse records show. He paid $1.3 million for the easternmost home, Unit A, in May 2013, when its interiors were still unfinished.

In March 2013, he paid $950,000 for Unit B, immediately to the west, which at the time had finished interiors.

Both of the houses at No. 135 have hardwood floors, single-car garages and well-equipped kitchens. Unit A also features tray ceilings and crown moldings, while some rooms in Unit B have ceilings covered in wood planks.

Among Palm Beach’s oldest streets, Root Trail runs between the ocean and North County Road, four streets north of The Breakers resort. Once an artist’s colony, Root Trail is lined with historic buildings, many of them beach cottages, apartments or restored houses.

Buffett owned all of his Palm Beach real estate through a limited liabiltiy company named Sadeca Realty LLC, for which he served as manager, state business records show.

The properties on Root Trail are co-listed by agent Blake Hanley of Brown Harris Stevens and his mother, Denise Hanley, the Buffetts’ longtime real estate broker, of Denise Hanley Inc.

As is her custom, Denise Hanley declined to identify or discuss the ownership of the properties. But she did describe the houses as standing” on “barefoot-on-the-beach” sort of street.

“There’s nothing in Palm Beach really like it,” she said. “It’s a really cool street — so historic, with an Old Palm Beach (vibe).”

Root Trail, she said, is especially a favorite of people who, like herself, have lived in town for a long time. “It’s always drawn the ‘beachiest’ of us,” she said, adding that as a boy, her son always dreamed one day of living there.

Among their other residential holdings in Palm Beach, Buffet and his wife owned a since-demolished-and-replaced mansion facing the ocean at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. They sold that Estate Section house for a recorded $18.5 million in 2010. They Buffetts had bought the mansion for $4.4 million in 1994, property records show.

In 2011, the couple paid just under $5 million for a North End home at 309 Garden Road, which they sold in 2020 for $6.9 million, according to courthouse records.

In addition to the Palm Beach compound on Root Trail, the Buffetts’ real estate portfolio included homes on Sunset Road in West Palm Beach and in Daytona Beach; Beverly Hills, California; and Sag Harbor, New York.

Known for his business acumen, Jimmy Buffett was ranked for the first time on Forbes’ list of the world's billionaires just a few months before his death. He built his fortune by performing and recording his music but also by licensing song titles and capitalizing on the Margaritaville brand for hotels, restaurants, lounges, home furnishings and other products.

In late June, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill that named Florida State Road A1A after Buffett.

*To see more photos of the late Jimmy Buffett's houses on Root Trail in Palm Beach, click on the photo gallery at the top of this page.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jimmy Buffett Palm Beach Florida homes for sale includes music studio