A company affiliated wtih billionaire Robert F. Smith and his wife, Hope, has sold — for a recorded $29.25 million — a Palm Beach house that the couple’s ownership entity bought in 2022 for $23 million. Since then, a major renovation was completed at the house, which was built in 1986 at 150 El Vedado Road.
The house stands about a 1½ miles north of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.
The Palm Beach Daily News is the first media outlet to report the sale.
The house had been purchased as a real estate investment property, the Smiths’ family office confirmed in December 2022, when a Delaware-registered limited liability company named Hope Enterprises RE LLC bought the Estate Section property. The same company was listed on the seller’s side of the deed recorded May 29.
In the just-closed deal, the buyer was a Delaware limited liability company, 8:28 Florida Properties LLC. That entity has a mailing address in Irvine, California, matching that of Orange County Wealth Management, an affiliate of Aspirant. The latter company has multiple locations across the country and offers financial and advisory services to high-net-worth people and their families, the website says.
Because of Delaware’s strict corporate privacy laws, no other information about anyone associated with the the buyer was immediately available in public records.
Robert Smith, who is regularly identified in media reports as being among the wealthiest Black U.S. residents, and his wife have a sizable seaside estate in Seminole Landing near North Palm Beach, which at one point was the home of Elin Nordegren, ex-wife of golf legend Tiger Woods.
Robert Smith is principal founder, chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, which invests in software companies. His net worth is estimated by Forbes.com at $10 billion, up from $8 billion when Hope Enterprises RE LLC bought the house on El Vedado Road.
The Palm Beach Regency-style house that just sold has seven bedrooms, two of which have previously been re-purposed for use as a gym and a den, according to a sales listing.
The house has 6,335 square feet of living space, inside and out, property records show. The ocean-block lot measures more than a half-acre on the southeast corner of South County Road.
Broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate confirmed he handled both sides of the sale. He declined to comment about the transaction.
Angle had previously listed the house lat $32.5 million, the MLS shows. He also marketed it for rent.
Building records show renovations were begun before the house sold in 2022. The work has since been completed, and the estate appears to be in pristine condition, photographs in the multiple listing service show.
Angle’s previous sales listing refers to the house’s “sunny and bright interiors with high ceilings.” Glass doors in the living room open to the backyard, where there are a whirlpool spa and a lap pool.
The family room is adjacent to the well-equipped kitchen and accesses a terrace. The layout also includes a formal dining room and a two-car garage.
The Smiths’ ownership company bought the property from a Delaware company affiliated with another family named Smith — Palm Beach resident and real estate investor Barbara Stovall Smith and her financier husband, Randall Smith. The latter couple used an ownership entity to buy the house in January 2021 for a recorded $7.88 million.
During the past decade, companies linked to Randall and Barbara Smith have bought and sold multiple Palm Beach investment properties. Randall Smith co-founded the investments company Alden Global Capital and has invested heavily in newspapers and media companies through his Digital First Media and New Media Group.
Barbara and Randall Smith’s most recent sale was a private deal recorded at $93.34 million for a house they developed on speculation at 757 Island Drive on Everglades Island in Palm Beach.
The house that just sold on El Vedado Road was built for its first owner, the late Donna Shalek, construction records show. It was developed by the late Palm Beach developer Robert Gottfried in his signature Palm Beach Regency style, featuring a flat roof and neoclassical elements that include a triangular pediment over the front door.
Real estate observers say the so-called “El” streets — including El Vedado Road and neighboring El Brillo Way and El Bravo Way — are among the Estate Section’s most in-demand streets, thanks to their historic provenance, their proximity to shopping and dining on Worth Avenue and the high quality of the houses there.
Robert Smith made news in 2019 when he said during a commencement speech he would pay the college debt for the Class of 2019 at private Morehouse College, a traditionally Black college in Atlanta. In 2020, he made headlines of a different sort when he entered a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the IRS to pay $139 million for his role in a tax-fraud case, according to media reports.
Stefan Coman signed the El Vedado Road deed as authorized signatory for HRS Estates LLC of Delaware, the parent company of Hope Enterprises RE LLC.
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_Hofhe
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Billionaire’s company sells updated Palm Beach house for $29.25M
Reporting by Darrell Hofheinz, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
