Retired investment banker sells award-winning landmarked Palm Beach house she restored

A landmarked house that won an award for historic preservation has sold in Midtown Palm Beach for $12.7 million, the price recorded Feb. 28 with the deed.

Known as Tradewinds, the house at 424 Brazilian Ave. was built in 1930 and restored by retired investment banker Lynn Foster, who sold it as co-trustee of The Claflin Family Trust, the deed shows.

The buyer was another Palm Beach property owner, Timothy Sanford, acting as trustee of the LRG Land Trust. Sanford and the same trust have owned another house across town since late 2021, courthouse records show.

Because of privacy rules governing trusts, no other information about the LRG Land Trust was readily available in public records.

The property Foster just sold has a main two-story house with three bedroom suites and 3,306 total square feet of living space, inside and out. At the rear of the property, on the other side of the swimming pool, is a two-bedroom guesthouse with1,294 total square feet, a living room and a kitchen.

The property is in the lake block of Brazilian Avenue near the Palm Beach Marina and a few blocks north of Worth Avenue.

The Spanish-style house was designed by Maurice Fatio, a noted Palm Beach society architect.

Foster paid a recorded $2.575 million for the house in 2011. Among its features is an impressive banyan tree in the front courtyard.

Originally from Hawaii, Foster spent her banking career in Philadelphia and New York City. Upon retiring, she began house-hunting in Palm Beach.

“I was looking for a house, and it obviously responded to my DNA,” she said. “It was tropical. The banyan tree was perfect. I felt at home here before I even realized the architectural history of the house,” she told the Palm Beach Daily News in 2014.

Brown Harris Stevens handled both sides of the sale recorded Feb. 14. Agent Carole Hogan represented Foster and negotiated opposite her colleague Maureen R. Woodward.

Woodward declined to comment about the transaction or identify her clients. But she provided a statement from them to the Palm Beach Daily News. They were drawn to the property's grace and history — and its charm of “old Palm Beach," the statement said. Those entering the property, the statement continued, are “transported into a time and place of unadulterated class and beauty.”

Hogan listed the house for sale at $14.85 million in October, and the price never wavered, the multiple listing service shows.

Although the house had been renovated several years before Foster bought it, she embarked on her own extensive renovation and restoration, which took a year to complete.

The project ended up winning the 2014 Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach's Polly Earl Award, which recognizes small-scale, historically sensitive renovation and restoration projects.

The restoration, Foster said in 2014, was literally a labor of love.

“It's about a love affair rather than just a home. I fell in love with this house," Foster said at the time the award was presented.

The house earned its landmark status from the town in 2001, a designation that protects its exterior walls from significant alteration unless the changes are approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Architect Patrick Segraves of SKA Architect + Planner, who had worked at the property previously, designed the renovation.

“We wanted to make the house 21st-century-livable while keeping its integrity and charm,” Segraves said in 2014.

Original features of the house include Cuban-tile floors and a saltbox style, pecky-cypress ceiling that crowns the two-story-tall living room.

The renovation included a 348-square-foot addition at the rear of the main residence that provided enough space on the ground floor for an en-suite third bedroom, which Foster used as a sitting room, and a new primary bedroom above it. Both rooms have views of the pool.

Each of the original windows and doors were replaced with mahogany-framed, impact-resistant versions. And two of the living room’s arched windows, which were in Fatio’s original drawings but had been removed at some point, were restored on either side of the fireplace.

Other projects included replacing the original wrought-iron stair banister and gallery railings with replicas, adding and enlarging openings to bring more natural light into the interior, rebuilding walls, replacing the home’s stucco, and installing and refinishing wood details.

In addition, new coral key stone was installed in the redesigned front courtyard and on other patio areas.

Foster sold the house with her two sons, John A. Claflin and Richard M. Claflin II serving as her co-trustees, the deed shows.

The North End house at 250 Country Club Road owned by buyer Sandford and The LRG Land Trust last changed hands for a recorded $8.5 million in December 2021. In that sale, Woodward represented the seller, a limited liability company linked to Paula S. Butler, with agents Paulette Koch and Dana Koch of the Corcoran Group handling the buyer’s side.

The two-story, Mediterranean-style house on Country Club Road was built in 2001 and has three bedrooms and 4,849 square feet.

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This is a developing story. Check back for any updates. Portions of this story appeared previously in the Palm Beach Daily News.

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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: How much did award-winning historic house just sell for in Palm Beach?