A man’s home is his castle. And if the house is on the waterway in North Palm Beach, it’s also the place where he can dock his 164-foot mega-yacht.
That’s the Feb. 9 ruling from Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Reid Scott in a case involving North Palm Beach resident Michael Bozzuto and the village of North Palm Beach.
In a 14-page decision, Scott found that nothing in the village’s rules prevents Bozzuto from mooring his Westport yacht, known as Honey, behind a home Bozzuto owns at 932 Shore Drive.
The decision comes two years after Bozzuto, a billionaire grocery store owner, filed a lawsuit against the village. The lawsuit followed years of conflict with the village about the extra-large boat Bozzuto wanted to keep behind his house.
The conflict is an example of how big money landing in Florida is running up against Old Florida residents who want their communities to stay low-key.
The tiny community of North Palm Beach, with only 13,000 full-time residents, has an identity so tied to the water that a ship’s steering wheel is the village’s emblem. But change is rapidly taking place, and the village has other large yachts in its waterways, said Gregory Coleman, Bozzuto’s lawyer.
In his February 2024 lawsuit, Bozzuto alleged the village was illegally depriving him of his property rights because nothing in the village code prevented him from mooring Honey at the Shore Drive house. There aren’t any rules on the size of boats that can be moored, either.
The lawsuit was in response to village warnings that Bozzuto couldn’t keep Honey at the house because boats can only be moored behind houses where the owner is an occupant.
But village rules do not define the word “occupant.”
Bozzuto owns several houses in North Palm Beach. While he keeps some personal property at the Shore Drive house, he lives at his Harbour Isles Court house, the lawsuit said.
Gregory Coleman, Bozzuto’s West Palm Beach lawyer, called the judge’s decision a vindication for his client against a failed effort at selective enforcement.
“Putting aside the fact that there are 130-foot yachts all over the place, what’s the difference between 130 feet and 164 feet?” asked Coleman, a former Florida Bar president.
“The difference is they had a vendetta against Mike Bozzuto, who has done nothing but be a well-respected, quiet, under-the-radar person who pays hundreds of thousands of dollars in property taxes to North Palm Beach,” Coleman said. “And this is how he gets treated.”
Coleman said the village wrongly blocked Bozzuto from docking Honey at his house because the village was bending to pressure from a handful of neighbors who think the boat is too big.
But Coleman said there is plenty of room for other boaters to navigate the waterway if Honey is parked at the Shore Drive house.
In a Feb. 10 email, village manager Chuck Huff said the village would not comment “due to ongoing litigation.”
Huff did not respond to an inquiry about whether the village would appeal the decision.
Why the Shore Drive house is special
The 932 Shore Drive house, built in 1961, is a one-story, ranch-style property with three bedrooms on a half-acre lot. Bozzuto paid $840,247 for the house in 2014, according to Palm Beach County property records.
What makes this plain house special is its location.
It’s on a rare corner bordered on the north and east by navigable waters that provide access to the Atlantic Ocean via the Lake Worth Inlet. The east-facing dock is large enough to accommodate Bozzuto’s motor yacht.
Bozzuto spent more $1 million on a dock and boat lifts behind the Shore Drive house so he could accommodate his 164-foot Westport.
What is an occupant of a house? North Palm Beach can’t say
North Palm Beach officials have struggled to justify how the word “occupant” applies to people who own houses in the village but don’t live there all the time.
At a 2017 village council meeting, then-Mayor Darryl Aubrey commented on the issue, according to the complaint.
“When I didn’t live here full time, I had a boat sitting in my dock, I was gone nine months of the year. I don’t see how you can say that someone has to be in a residence year-round, seems to be some interpretation of occupant, there would be an enormous number of violations,” Aubrey said.
Another member of the village council asked if the village had a definition now, the complaint said.
“No, we don’t,” said Leonard Rubin, the village attorney, according to the lawsuit.
And in a deposition for the Bozzuto case, Rubin was asked to define the village’s interpretation of occupant.
“The Village defines the term occupant as a person who resides on the property for some length of time,” Rubin said.
When asked what the length of time was, Rubin responded: “There’s no specific length of time.”
In his ruling, Judge Scott noted the village seemed to want to equate occupant with resident but noted that the word occupant is not defined in the code.
Therefore, because the village’s rule is ambiguous, Scott found that an occupant is someone who occupies title or the premises. This means that Bozzuto is an occupant of the 932 Shore house and can use the dock behind the house to moor his boat.
Big money brings more big yachts
Coleman’s lawsuit describes the conflict as a battle over property rights, but real estate and yachting experts say it’s also a sign of the times.
As wealthy new residents pour into the county wanting all the perks of the Sunshine State, they want a boat to go along with their waterfront homes and golf club memberships.
Some longtime residents fear Palm Beach County is turning into a playground for billionaires to the detriment of everyday people who also want to live in sunshine and peace.
This conflict between Old Florida and new money is an ever-present tension, but even seasoned yacht brokers say they’ve never seen interest in luxury yachts quite as strong as it is now.
“It’s a mini-Monaco for us,” Pascal Savoy, U.S. managing director of Camper & Nicholsons International yacht brokers in Fort Lauderdale, said in a 2024 interview.
Prices for mega-yachts can range from $18 million to $60 million, or many times that, for the largest and most decked-out mega-yachts. While some yachts can be glitzy, a 164-foot Westport is considered a more low-profile boat.
Houses, boats and philanthropy
Bozzuto is no newcomer to North Palm Beach. He’s been a resident of the village for more than 20 years.
He is the billionaire owner of a family-owned supermarket wholesaler in Connecticut and an investor and philanthropist who likes to collect houses and yachts, Coleman said.
The Westport mega-yacht was built in 2007 and is the largest of several yachts Bozzuto owns.
In addition to four North Palm Beach houses, Bozzuto in 2024 also paid $31.1 million for a house in the Town of Palm Beach Shores. The house, which has two docks, sits just north of the Palm Beach/Lake Worth Inlet.
A year later, Bozzuto paid $25 million for a marina next to the Palm Beach Shores house. The marina is part of the Havn Residences & Yacht Club, but the residences were not part of the deal.
Since Bozzuto bought Honey for an undisclosed sum a decade ago, he mostly has parked it at the Old Port Cove Marina, Coleman said.
But now that he’s been cleared to park Honey behind his house, Coleman said Bozutto will be able to save $300,000 a year in dock fees. This will open up a prime spot at Old Port Cove for someone else’s mega-yacht, Coleman said.
Alexandra Clough is a business writer at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at aclough@pbpost.com. X: @acloughpbp. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Billionaire can keep his 164-foot yacht behind his house, judge rules
Reporting by Alexandra Clough, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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