Just-completed 'spec' house brings $43.77 million in Palm Beach's Phipps Estates
A just-completed house developed on speculation on one of the largest lots in Palm Beach’s Phipps Estates enclave has sold for $43.77 million, the price recorded April 30 with the deed.
West Palm Beach-based luxury homebuilder Malasky Homes built the estate at 205 Via Tortuga and sold it through a Florida limited liability company named after the property’s address, the deed shows.
“It was an overseas buyer,” said broker Jeremy Stewart, who owns Park View Realty in Jupiter and negotiated for the buyer.
He declined to provide further details about his client or offer specifics about the deal.
The deed shows the buyer bought the property through The Mijko Trust, for which Sharon Trulock serves as trustee. A woman by that name is an attorney in the private-client division at New York City office of Shearman and Sterling. Trulock could not immediately be reached, and because of privacy laws governing trusts, no other information about anyone associated with the trust was readily available in a search of public records.
With French country-style architecture, the five-bedroom house and its two-bedroom detached guest house have 13,523 square feet of living space, inside and out. They occupy a non-waterfront lot of nearly an acre.
The lushly landscaped lot was described as “one of the most beautiful properties in town” by “This Old House” star Bob Vila when he was chairman of the Palm Beach Architectural Commission, which approved the design of the house in 2019.
The irregularly shaped lot is in the northeast corner of Phipps Estates, a gated neighborhood that stretches between North County Road and North Lake Way, about a mile north of Royal Poinciana Way.
Malasky Homes bought the property in October 2020 for $9.4 million — including the town-approved house plans — from Dan E. and Karen Swanson, who developed Phipps Estates in the 1990s.
“This was the most expensive house we’ve ever sold. It’s also the most expensive lot we've ever bought,” said Malasky Homes President Bruce A. Malasky. “The value really is in the real estate.”
The lot sold in 2020 with a 1920s-era cottage, which had been the longtime home of the Swansons. Malasky Homes razed the cottage to make way for the house that just sold.
When Malasky Homes bought the lot, it was the only property in Phipps Estates that had never been redeveloped.
Agent Jim McCann of Premier Estate Properties represented both sides of the sale in 2020. He also acted on behalf of Malasky Homes in the sale that just recorded. He declined to comment about the transaction.
The house was not marketed in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service while it was being built. McCann entered the listing into the MLS on April 12 as a “pending” sale with an asking price of $48 million. The sale closed about a week later, according to MLS records.
In a brief phone conversation with the Palm Beach Daily News, Stewart said he was the exclusive agent for the buyer and offered his congratulations to all parties involved in the sale.
A family business, Malasky Homes has developed and sold luxury houses across the island. Its leadership team also includes Bruce Malasky's brother, Stephen P. Malasky. The company was founded by their father, the late Palm Beacher Donald Malasky.
Guesthouse overlooks the pool and has its own kitchen
Architect Jonathan C. Moore of Smith and Moore Architects in West Palm Beach designed the L-shaped house on Via Tortuga with a cast-stone facade, dormer windows and multiple French doors. A winding driveway leads to an expansive front motor court and courtyard. A wing with the four-car garage extends toward Via Tortuga.
At the rear of the property, the poolside covered loggia has a railed terrace above it. There’s also a well-equipped summer kitchen, according to McCann’s sales listing. The guesthouse, which has its own kitchen, stands immediately east of the pool.
The sales listing described formal entertaining spaces and areas for more casual gatherings, all designed to “accommodate the contemporary lifestyle.”
The house was furnished by Sara McCann's McCann Design Group, which also provided the interior finishes, draperies and light fixtures and other items. But it's unclear if the any of the furnishings changed hands in the sale. Sara McCann is married to Jim McCann.
“The overall craftsmanship across the board was just phenomenal,” Malasky said. “It’s just the most gorgeous house we have ever built.”
Before they sold the property to Malasky Homes, the Swansons had floated the idea of developing the house themselves on speculation or as a custom home for a client through Addison Development Corp., their West Palm Beach family company.
When the Architectural Commission approved the design of the house, Vila noted the property’s abundance of old-growth trees and other plants, many of which would become part of the landscape for the new house, the plans showed.
The property was once known as 474 N. County Road. But the plans for the new estate closed off the County Road entrance and moved the driveway to a former pedestrian entrance off Via Tortuga.
Via Tortuga is the northernmost of the two streets in Phipps Estates. The other is Via Las Brisas. Together, they bracket a sizable estate owned by entities associated with Susie Phipps Cochran, who shared it with her late husband, businessman Robert Eigelberger. The land was once part of a much larger estate owned by the Phipps family, who in 20th century were among Palm Beach’s most prominent property owners.
Other Palm Beach houses built, sold by Malasky Homes
Malasky Homes has developed spec houses on the island for two decades. Among its more recent sales, the company sold, for a recorded $17.89 million, a newly completed Bermuda-style house on a lakefront property at 1280 N. Lake Way in April 2021. In that sale, McCann acted for the seller opposite agent Bill Yahn of the Corcoran Group, representing a Florida land trust.
On Everglades Island, the company in early 2019 sold a nearly completed waterfront house at 608 Island Drive for $15.48 million to a trust. That house was listed by broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate, with Sotheby’s International Realty agent Carole Koeppel representing the buyer.
In 2018, Malasky Homes sold a larger lakefront house it developed down the street on the northeast tip of Everglades Island at 488 Island Drive for $21 million. On the buyers’ side of that deal were retail businessmen and brothers Richard and Jeffrey Feinstein, who acted as trustees of a trust. Angle handled both sides of that sale.
In 2021, a Malasky trust sold — for a recorded $18.22 million — a residence built by the company in 2007 at at 13 Via Vizcaya. It was home tothe late Lorraine Malasky, who had shared it with husband Donald. The buyer in the off-market deal was a Florida limited liability company named 13 Via Vizcaya Investments. Agent Elizabeth DeWoody of Compass Florida handled the buyer’s side on Via Vizcaya, negotiating opposite Lorraine Malasky’s stepson, Stephen Malasky, a real estate broker.
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This is a developing story. Check back for any updates.
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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 real estate: New off-water 'spec' house fetches $43.77M
