Fosters sell, for $12.5 million, a Midtown Palm Beach house they owned for almost 50 years

Longtime Palm Beach interior designer Leta Austin Foster and her real-estate agent husband, Ridgely, have parted with their landmarked house on private Pendleton Lane in Palm Beach.

The property at 345 Pendleton Lane changed hands for $12.5 million, the price reported Friday in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.

The Fosters had owned the house for nearly 50 years, property records show. They bought it for $180,000 in 1975 and last owned it through trusts in both of their names, according to courthouse documents.

The five-bedroom, Georgian Revival-style house was built in 1940, town records show, to a design by the late John L. Volk, a prolific Palm Beach architect. Volk designed all of the original houses on Pendleton Lane, only one of which has been replaced.

The house the Fosters just sold has 5,340 square feet of living space, inside and out.

The couple at one point resided at the house but also leased out the property to tenants over the years, the MLS shows. Their main residence in Palm Beach today is an apartment over the Leta Austin Foster home-furnishings, apparel and gift boutique in a building they own in the Via Mizner off Worth Avenue.

The sale on Pendleton Lane closed Dec. 7, but the buyer has not yet been identified in public records. The Palm Beach County Clerk’s office had not recorded a deed for the sale as of early Monday afternoon. It’s also unclear if the price reported in the MLS will match the one to be recorded at the courthouse.

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Photographs of the house in the MLS show it has many of the architectural signatures of Volk houses of its era, including a gracefully curved staircase, generously proportioned rooms and French doors. In the rear, a covered patio overlooks the swimming pool, which is set into an informal landscape.

Pendleton Lane is a short cul-de-sac lined with vintage houses between the Intracoastal Waterway and Cocoanut Row, several streets north of Royal Palm Way. It is among a handful of private streets in town and is owned by the homeowners, who also maintain it.

Nearby Pendleton Avenue, a public street, picks up on the other side of Coconut Row and runs to South County Road, bordering The Breakers’ golf course.

The former Foster residence stands on a quarter-acre lot on the north side Pendleton Lane's terminus, one house east of the lake.

Leta Foster decorated the house in the eclectic style she is known for, with a mix of traditional but comfortable furnishings, muted colors and painted finishes.

Agent Jeff Cloninger of Sotheby’s International Realty listed the house Sept. 1 at $15 million, the MLS shows. It landed under contract about five weeks later.

Citing a confidentiality agreement, Cloninger declined to comment about the transaction or the parties involved. The MLS does not identify the agent who handled the buyer’s side of the transaction.

Leta Foster also declined to discuss the sale.

Town officials named the house a landmark in 2022. The designation means that the exterior can’t be significantly altered without the approval of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

“In keeping with the Georgian Revival style, the focal point of the main façade is the center entry,” said a report on the house prepared as part of the landmarking process. “This decorative entry features a distinctive screen door with slanted wood elements in front of the wood paneled door (that) is topped by a charming transom.”

The walkway to the front door is flanked by lily ponds.

At one point in the late 1990s, the town considered creating a historic district that would encompass Pendleton Lane and Pendleton Avenue, but the Town Council did not end up endorsing that plan.

The former Foster house’s unassuming, small-scale architecture is typical of the pared-down look of many homes in Palm Beach during the 1930s and ’40s. They contrast with the fanciful Mediterranean-style homes and rambling mansions built during the Roaring ’20s, which ended in Florida with the bust of the real estate boom and the advent of the Great Depression.

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The house has only had three owners, the landmarks report says. It was built by Arnold Construction Co. for jeweler Milton A. Ellen Fuller and his wife, Ellen. Milton Fuller had an eponymous shop on Worth Avenue.

In 1965, the house was sold Richard Collier, “grandson of the pioneer south Florida developer Barron G. Collierwho accumulated and later developed over a million acres of southwest Florida land and was the namesake of Collier County," the landmarks report says.

After 10 years of ownership, Collier sold the house to the Fosters.

With offices in Palm Beach and New York, Leta Foster founded her eponymous interior-design firm more than 40 years ago. Her award-winning work, which has been published in leading design magazines, was the subject of a 2015 book, “Traditional Interiors: Leta Austin Foster, India Foster and Sallie Giordano.”

Her husband is an agent with Sotheby’s International Realty.

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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.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach historic house sells after nearly 50 years in same family