It’s been a busy few weeks, real estate-wise, for developer and businessman Philip S. Cambo, who just used an ownership company to sell his Palm Beach custom home at 1191 N. Ocean Way for a recorded $18 million.
The off-market sale came on the heels of a $17 deal recorded last month, when Cambo used a different company to buy a vacant half-acre lot across town on Chapel Hill Road, where he plans to build a custom home.
Cambo sold the North Ocean Way house through his Massachusetts-registered limited liability company, Valley Property Management LLC, the deed recorded June 2 shows.
The buyer on North Ocean Way was Andrew Midler, who acted as trustee of the Popham Shoreline Trust, according to the deed. Because of privacy laws governing trusts, no other information about the buyer’s side of the sale was immediately available in public records.
Valley Property Management paid $1.125 million for the North Ocean Way property in 2011, and Cambo’s custom home was completed in 2013 to a design by architect Roger Janssen of Dailey Janssen Architects.
The house on North Ocean Way has four bedrooms and 6,243 square feet of living space, inside and out, property records show. The layout includes an office, a dining room, a formal living area, an elevator and a family room open to the kitchen, according to plans filed with the town. The primary bedroom on the second floor is complemented by an expansive ground-level bedroom. Other selling points included a “bonus” room above the two-car garage along with new landscaping and a recently revamped pool area with a loggia.
The property lies about halfway between the Palm Beach Country Club and the inlet at the northern tip of the island. The lot measures about three-fifths of an acre on the southwest corner of Nightingale Trail. The house is the second one west of North Ocean Boulevard, the coastal road that runs along the beach.
Cambo, who is married to Kathleen Cambo, is president of Northern Tree Service in Palmer, Massachusetts, but he has been involved in the development and sale of at least three other houses in Palm Beach’s North End, property records show.
Agent Gary Pohrer of Serhant confirmed he acted for the buyer in the sale on North Ocean Way but declined further comment.
Agent Chris Deitz of Compass Florida confirmed he represented Philip Cambo’s interests on North Ocean Way as well as in his company’s purchase of the empty lot on Chapel Hill Road in Midtown. The latter transaction was recorded May 13.
Cambo’s company, PEG 425 LLC, bought the lot on the south side of Chapel Hill Road — but addressed as 3 S. Lake Trail — from the estate of the late retired real estate developer James Y. Arnold Jr.
Cambo has already begun working on the design of his custom home for the Chapel Hill property, Dietz told the Palm Beach Daily News.
Arnold’s estate simultaneously sold two pieces of adjacent vacant land — for $15 million — to Farrell Florida Dev LLC, a Florida entity managed by luxury homebuilder Jack Farrell. His father is Joe Farrell, who is known for building luxury residences in New York’s The Hamptons as well as in South Florida.
Deitz represented the Farrell company in its purchase on Chapel Hill Road and said at the time that a house would be developed there on speculation.
Agents Liza Pulitzer and Whitney McGurk of Brown Harris Stevens were the listing agents for the vacant land.
The land was formerly part of Rabbit Hill, a historic estate that had been in the Arnold family since the 1940s, although its roots date to before the turn of the 20th century.
In 2025, the Arnold family had razed an 1891 wood-frame house, also known as Rabbit Hill, on the property and marketed the land as separate lots.
Philip Cambo’s real estate projects in Palm Beach include developing a house at 234 List Road, which sold for $14.65 million in September. He also built a house at 217 Sandpiper Drive, selling it in May 2021 for a recorded $7.775 million. Another house he developed at 249 Orange Grove Road sold for a recorded $4.49 million in December 2017.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Portions of this 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. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Cambo sells Palm Beach home for $18M after buying lot across town
Reporting by Darrell Hofheinz, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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