Late Stephanie Wrightsman's Palm Beach home fetches 4,000% more than its last sale in 1974

Darrell Hofheinz, Palm Beach Daily News
·3 min read
The longtime home of the late Stephanie Wrightsman at 259 Queens Lane has changed hands for a recorded $6.63 million. Wrightsman bought the four-bedroom house for about $160,000 in 1974, property records show.
The longtime home of the late Stephanie Wrightsman at 259 Queens Lane has changed hands for a recorded $6.63 million. Wrightsman bought the four-bedroom house for about $160,000 in 1974, property records show.

Headlines about Palm Beach real estate can give the impression that transactions in town are mostly limited to homes that change hands at $20 million or more. After all, big prices tend to play big in the media.

But there are also plenty of smaller sales that keep the market humming and tell their own stories, especially on the North End.

A case in point: A four-bedroom house at 259 Queens Lane that had been the longtime home of the late Stephanie A. Wrightsman just sold for a recorded $6.63 million. She paid $159,600 for it in 1974, courthouse records show. The latest sale represents about a 4,000% jump in value between the two transactions.

The buyers were financial executive Simon van den Born and his businessperson wife, Lisa, according to a courthouse document recorded Nov. 7. He is president of Marex, a financial-services firm that serves clients in the energy and commodities markets, among other fields. The company is headquartered in London but has offices elsewhere in Europe as well as in Asia and the United States, according to its website.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Long-gone Blythedunes in Palm Beach was Wrightsmans' showplace

Built in 1942, the house on Queens Lane was sold by the estate of Wrightsman, who died Nov. 7, 2022, at 77. Two deeds were recorded as part of the transaction — one signed by her daughter, Alexandra Vassilopoulos, and the other by West Palm Beach attorney Garry M. Glickman, who acted as “curator” of Wrightsman’s estate.

Wrightsman was from a family with deep Palm Beach roots. She was the granddaughter of the late Oklahoma oilman Charles B. Wrightsman, who with his second wife, the late socialite Jane Wrightsman, was a noted art collector. The couple entertained frequently at Blythedunes, their since-demolished Palm Beach estate on North County Road.

The late Stephanie Wrightsman was a longtime Palm Beach resident.
The late Stephanie Wrightsman was a longtime Palm Beach resident.

Among her charitable involvement, Stephanie Wrightsman in 1991 served as chair of the 50th anniversary celebration of the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.

She also was a trained cook who liked to entertain at her home. In 2021, Eleanor Woolems, who lived on Queens Lane in the 1990s, described Wrightsman to the Palm Beach Daily News as “a true gourmand” and “one of the best and (most) creative hostesses on the island.”

At the rear of a North End house at 259 Queens Lane in Palm Beach, glass doors open onto the pool area. Built in 1942, the house just sold for a price recorded at about $6.63 million to Simon and Lisa van den Born.
At the rear of a North End house at 259 Queens Lane in Palm Beach, glass doors open onto the pool area. Built in 1942, the house just sold for a price recorded at about $6.63 million to Simon and Lisa van den Born.

ON THE MARKET IN PALMB BEACH: Everglades Island home of 'This Old House' star Bob Vila enters the Palm Beach market at $52.9 million

The two-story house just sold by Wrightsman’s estate has traditional architecture in the Monterey style, which includes a “hanging” veranda above the front door.

With 3,436 square feet of of living space, inside and out, the midblock home occupies a lot of a fifth of an acre, about midway between the Palm Beach Country Club and the inlet at the north tip of the island.

Queens Lane is considered a prime North End street, thanks in part to amenities maintained by the neighborhood association, which is rather whimsically known as the Queens Lane Cultural Society. Residents on the street enjoy access to a cabana on the ocean and a private “day dock” on the Intracoastal Waterway.

Brown Harris Stevens agents Liza Pulitzer and Whitney McGurk represented the buyers.

Sotheby’s International Realty agent Tierney O’Hara handled the seller’s side of the deal. She listed the house at $9.5 million in February, and then dropped the price incrementally before it settled at $7.9 million in July, according to the multiple listing service. The price recorded with the deed was a “net” sale, O'Hara said.

O'Hara said she had known Wrightsman for years. “She just loved that house. It was a very comfortable home,” O'Hara said. “She was a best friend to me. Selling it was really heartfelt.”

*

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 house brings $6.63M, or 4,000% more than last sale in 1974