Sale of Palm Beach seaside home tops $51 million after just 3 months on market, MLS says

A Palm Beach custom home built six years ago on a lot facing Midtown Beach has sold for $51.25 million, according to an updated sales listing in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing service.

With Bermuda-inspired architecture, the house at 200 S. Ocean Blvd. spent about three months on the market before it sold May 8, the MLS shows.

Property records indicate it was sold by the couple who built it — Becky Gochman, an equestrian, and David H. Gochman, a businessman and investor who once owned a chain of sporting-goods stores.

A deed for the sale had not been recorded by the Palm Beach County Clerk’s office as of May 9, so the identity of the buyer was not available yet in online public records. It was also unclear whether the price reported in the MLS will match the one expected to be documented with the deed.

The sale is the fourth residential transaction to close at $39 million or more within the last two weeks in Palm Beach, according to courthouse and MLS records.

At the corner of Seabreeze Avenue, the house that just changed hands stands across the coastal road from a landscaped beach parcel. The main lot and the beach land together total about an acre.

The four-bedroom house and separate two-bedroom guesthouse have 8,948 square feet of living space, inside and out. Although the beach parcel is vacant, the town’s zoning code would allow the buyer to build a cabana and swimming pool there.

The Gochmans razed a 1920s-era house and guesthouse on the main lot after buying it 10 years ago for a recorded $15.38 million. The house they built had been listed as their primary residence in the latest Palm Beach County tax rolls.

Listing agent Jim McCann of Premier Estate Properties had the house priced at $59 million. It landed under contract April 30, the MLS shows.

McCann declined to comment about the sale or the parties involved.

Douglas Elliman Real Estate agents Phatavanh and Derek Olsen represented the buyer’s side of the sale, the MLS shows.

The same two Douglas Elliman agents were widely said to have represented Australian mining billionaire Gina Rinehart’s interests in a December 2022 off-market purchase of a Palm Beach house on an oceanfront cul-de-sac at 6 Via Los Incas for a recorded $66 million. The buyer’ss identity in that North End deal was cloaked by a Delaware company named TT 47th LLC. At the time of the purchase on Via Los Incas, the Olsens would neither confirm nor deny any involvement in the purchase on Via Los Incas.

Phatavanh did not immediately return messages seeking comment about the sale on South Ocean Boulevard.

The house was a rarity in the Palm Beach market, where residential values have soared over the past four years in response to the housing boom sparked by the coronavirus pandemic and fueled by the appeal to many out-of-state buyers of Florida’s relatively favorable tax picture.

“There are very few in-town oceanfront homes available for sale,” McCann said when the house entered the market on Feb. 5.

McCann had been briefly listed the former Gochman house in 2019 — before the start of the pandemic — at a much lower price of $30 million, MLS records show.

David Gochman founded Inclenberg Investments, which invests primarily in commercial real estate, according to its website. The company has offices in Palm Beach and Boerne, Texas.

Gochman was previously president and CEO of Academy Sports + Outdoors, a national sporting-goods retail chain started in Texas by his grandfather. That company was acquired in 2011 by KKR, the global investment firm co-founded by Palm Beach estate owner Henry Kravis, its co-executive chairman.

Vero Beach architects Peter Moor and Chris Baker designed the residence on South Ocean Boulevard with vintage touches to complement a Bermuda-style home immediately to the south, also designed by the principals of Moor, Baker & Associates.

The house was built by longtime Palm Beach contractor Tim Givens to withstand the effects of time and weather, McCann said in February describing it as a “beautifully constructed” home.

“There’s no plywood in this house,” McCann added at the time, referring to the construction materials. “There are no (wood) roof trusses. Instead, there is a poured-concrete roof. I think that the house will be there longer than anyone who is now living in Palm Beach.”

McCann’s sales listing described the natural materials used for the interior finishes, including antique oak flooring, cypress doors and hardware and fixtures made of brass, bronze and copper. The layout includes formal living and dining spaces along with a screened porch overlooking the pool and gardens. The poolside cabana has a fireplace, the listing said.

The east side of the house features a long front porch with a railed sundeck above it. Multiple windows with shutters look across to a beach.

The house “is perfect for black-tie and barefoot living,” the listing said.

In late 2020, the Gochmans sold another Palm Beach house they owned at 162 Atlantic Ave. on the near North End for $7.123 million, property records show.

The Gochman family is also linked to the ownership of Baxter Hill, a 12.4-acre horse farm and training facility at 3205 Olde Hampton Drive in Wellington. The family has a keen interest in horses and has sponsored and participated in a variety of show-jumping events, according to press reports.

When plans for the South Ocean Boulevard house were first reviewed by the Architectural Commission, the board was told the owners wanted the house to blend in with the historic neighborhood, one of the oldest platted areas in Palm Beach. But the house’s architecture also has a modern sensibility with its clean-lined silhouette.

In a phone interview when the house was listed in 2019, architect Moor described its style as “Palm Beach Bermuda,” noting that the architecture has a few playful Mediterranean-influenced touches.

McCann was not involved in the May 2014 deal when the Gochmans bought the property. Broker Christian J. Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate had that listing and negotiated opposite opposite agents Jack Elkins and Bunny Hiatt, then of the old Fite Shavell & Associates, which is today William Raveis South Florida.

When the Gochmans sold their 1920s-era house on Atlantic Ave. in November 2020, they were represented by McCann. Agents Chris Stutts and Thomas Liepman of K2 Realty acted on behalf of the buyers, energy businessman Sam Youneszadeh and his wife, Kimberly Honig, a hedge-fund executive.

*

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

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: Sale of seaside house in Midtown Palm Beach tops $51 million