Palm Beach couple sell vacant lot next door to their North End home for $9.95 million
A vacant lot in the North End of Palm Beach just sold for a nice chunk of green.
Palm Beach homeowner Morton A. Pierce bought the property at 324 Eden Road for $9.95 million, the price recorded late last week with the deed
But Pierce — an attorney and real estate investor — is keeping mum about his plans for the property, which measures about three-tenths of an acre. He declined to comment about the purchase.
The lot sold for about $457 per square foot, based on its size reported in the multiple listing service.
The sellers were longtime hedge-fund manager Gregory S. Hayt and his wife, Mardi, who own a house they built next door. In 2011, they paid a recorded $2.1 million for a 1950s-era house on the lot that just changed hands and then had it razed.
Sotheby’s International Realty handled both sides of the sale recorded Sept. 8, with agent Heather Woolems Rogers representing the sellers. She and her clients declined to comment, as did agent Stephanie E. Lefes, who acted on behalf of the buyer.
The lot sold quickly, according to the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service. Rogers listed the property at $10.9 million in early June and landed it under contract about two months later.
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Among its features, the lot has a service drive at the rear of the property and is within walking distance of the Lake Trail and its deeded beach access, Lefes’ sales listing said. Eden Road is several streets north of the Palm Beach Country Club.
For 15 years, Gregory Hayt led Paloma Partners Management Co., the investment adviser to the Paloma Fund, a multi-strategy hedge fund. The company announced this year he would step down from his position and assume a newly created role at the company. As vice chairman, Hayt serves as a “close and active advisor” to the company’s new co-chief investment officer and CEO, Neil Chriss, and company founder and Chairman S. Donald Sussman, who also holds the title of co-CIO.
In 2012, the Hayts paid $2.37 million for the lot where they built their five-bedroom house at 332 Eden Road, property records show. Town records show their home was designed by architect Peter Papadopoulos of Smith and Moore Architects and completed by Wittmann Building Corp. in 2014.
The Hayts also own a home in Mount Kisco, New York, property record show.
Pierce is a partner with the New York law firm of White & Case. With ties to Greenwich, Connecticut, he bought the Eden Road lot as trustee of a revocable trust in his name, the deed shows.
Pierce has been involved in other Palm Beach real estate transactions over the past few years.
His trust owns a North End house at 274 Monterey Road, which he bought for a recorded $8 million in May 2022, property records show. Lefes has that 1950s-era house listed for sale at $10.25 million. Records show it has been used as a rental property.
Lefes’ listing for the house on Monterey Road appears in both the MLS’s “single-family” and “land” categories. The sales description says the property offers an “opportunity to renovate, lease or build new on this large lot” of about three-tenths of an acre. The one-story house on Monterey Road was built in 1950 and has four bedrooms, 3,406 total square feet and a back yard with a pool.
“This is a good option for investors seeking income or the individual buyer wanting to build new or renovate and add value,” the listing says about the house on Monterey Road.
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Lefes acted on Pierce’s behalf when he and his trust bought the house on Monterey Road. In that deal, agent Gary Pohrer of Douglas Elliman Real Estate represented the seller, a Delaware-registered limited liability company named after the property’s address.
In April 2021, Pierce flipped — for a recorded $11.5 million — a newly built house he owned at 140 Kings Road near former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club. Pierce had bought the Kings Road property through his trust the previous October for $8.42 million. The sales closed during the Palm Beach real estate boom sparked after the coronavirus pandemic first made headlines in early 2020.
Pierce had bought the two-story, Bermuda-style house on Kings Road from its developer, Purucker & Marrano Custom Homes. On a third-of-an-acre lot, that house has five bedrooms and 6,780 square feet of living space, inside and out.
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Lefes represented Pierce when he bought the Kings Road house and when he sold it to Sandi Feinberg, the widow of vintner and philanthropist Herbert Feinberg. Agents Dana Koch and Paulette Koch of the Corcoran Group handled the buyer’s side of the second sale.
When Pierce bought the Kings Road house, Douglas Elliman Real Estate agents Craig and Heather Purucker Bretzlaff represented the seller.
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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: Palm Beach couple sells vacant lot next door. How much did it bring?
