A rare-to-the-market lakefront house in Midtown Palm Beach has changed hands for a recorded $49.6 million, sold by the estate and children of the late industrialist and entrepreneur William “Bill” E. Flaherty.
Next door to the historic Royal Poinciana Chapel, the property at 315 Chapel Hill Road had been listed for sale since October at $59 million.The new owner is a Delaware-registered limited liability company named Ocean Breezes 2 LLC, according to the deed recorded June 4. Public records show the company is managed by real estate attorney Francis X. Lynch of the law office of Sniffen & Spellman on Olive Avenue in West Palm Beach.
As manager of Ocean Breezes 2, Lynch signed a $25 million mortgage document tied to the Chapel Hill Road property and based on a loan from Comerica Bank. The mortgage was recorded simultaneously with the deed.
Lynch did not immediately respond to a request for comment left at his office. Because of Delaware’s strict corporate privacy laws, no other information about the buyer was immediately available in public records.
Built in 1987, the house and its adjacent guesthouse together areone of only a dozen single-family estatesfronting the Intracoastal Waterway between the Flagler Memorial Bridge and the Royal Park Bridge.
Facing about 200 feet of lakefront, the buildings look west to the Lake Trail walking path and downtown West Palm Beach across the water. The double lot measures four-fifths of an acre and includes a narrow strip of land on the west side of thewalking path.
With Beach Regency-style architecture, the five-bedroom house and three-bedroom guesthouse have a combined 6,438 square feet of living space, inside and out.
The sale joins six other Palm Beach residential deals that have recorded at $25 million or more since May 6. Those transactions included sales of three other lakefront properties: a newly renovated and expanded mansion at 10 Tarpon Island, the town’s only private island, changed hands for a recorded $150 million; a vacant lakefront lot at 940 N. Lake Way sold for a recorded $50 million; and a lakefront estate built in 2007 at 10 Via Vizcaya fetched a recorded $39 million.
The estate on Chapel Hill Road is at the end of a short cul-de-sac that inclines toward the lake from Cocoanut Row and borders the grounds of the chapel. The topography and proximity to the church give Chapel Hill Road its name.
Being close to the Royal Poinciana Chapel and its gardens also provides the house’s family room with a dramatic view of thechurch'sgrand kapok tree, a familiar sight to pedestrians on the Lake Trail.
Broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate handled both sides of the sale, which closed May 31, according to the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.Angle declined to comment about the property. But his sales listing described the estate as offering “spectacular sunset, Intracoastal and downtown views.”
Flaherty, who divided his time between Palm Beach and Remsenburg, N.Y., died in May 2023 at 90.
The Chapel Hill Road property was sold by Flaherty’s daughter, Anne Marie Flaherty-Shea of of New York City, and his son, Brian E. Flaherty, whose wife, Christina Ann Flaherty, joined him on the deed. Flaherty-Shea and her brother acted “individually” in the sale and served as personal co-trustees of a trust in their father’s name and as personal representatives of his estate, the deed shows. Brian and Christina Ann Flaherty’s address was listed on the deed in care of the EisnerAmper Family Office in West Palm Beach.
Also on the seller’s side was Rosemary Ryan Degrado of Greenwich, Connecticut, who acted as a personal representative of William Flaherty’s estate.
William Flaherty and his then-wife,Clementina “Tina” Santi Flaherty,paid a grand total of $3.4 million for the house and the adjacent lot to the south in 1989 and 1990, property records indicate. The couple, who also had a home in New York City, divorced in 2008, court records show.
Through Reynolds Aluminum, Bill Flaherty helped introduce the metal as a production material to the U.S. automobile industry in the 1970s, according to his obituary. He later founded Horsehead Industries, which became the country’s largest producer of zinc, and the company later acquired Great Lakes Carbon, which held a similar claim for carbon. Flaherty also helped pioneer a new process for recycling zinc dust.
Among the main house’s features are high ceilings and a grandly proportioned living room with a fireplace, Angle’s sales listing said. The layout also includes a formal dining room, and the family room has a wet bar.The grounds are landscaped with mature tropical foliage surrounding terraces, the pool and the whirlpool spa.
The one-story house and guesthouse have architectural signatures of the Palm Beach Regency style, including triangular pediments, clean-lined silhouettes, porches with classical columns, and flat roofs with decorative finials at the roofline.
The house was last on the market in 2011 with a price of $17.91 million, but the listing expired before the property sold, the MLS shows.
The Midtown location puts the house in relatively close proximity to shopping and dining venues on Royal Poinciana Way, South CountyRoadand Worth Avenue.
Houses on Chapel Hill Road rarely enter the market. But in November, another Palm Beach Regency-style house on a dry lot at 309 Chapel Hill Road sold for a recorded $15.5 million. In that deal, Angle represented the buyer, Ryan Wilson, and the two trusts for which he served as trustee. Broker Linda Olsson of Linda R. Olsson Realtor represented Robert G. Dettmer, who sold the four-bedroom house built in 1981 at 309 Chapel Hill Road with 5,050 total square feet.
Darrell Hofheinz is aUSA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column. He welcomes tipsabout real estate news on the island. Email dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com, call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz.
