Katherine “K.T.” Catlin recalls how her late parents, Ralph and Blanche Del Deo, had to juggle the timeframe a bit when it came to moving to Palm Beach from their home in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“My dad promised Mom that he would let her be in Palm Beach when she was ready. I think she was probably ready before Dad was,” Catlin says. “Dad was senior partner with what is now Gibbons Law and hadn’t retired, so it wasn’t time. Once everything was in place, they came down.”
The Del Deos bought their residence in 2000 at 265 Fairview Road.
And the couple enjoyed their home on the North End, says Catlin, a retired real estate marketing professional who serves on the Palm Beach Architectural Commission.
Her mother, Catlin says, always quipped that the first half of the couple’s marriage was for her husband, but the second half was hers.
Catlin had moved from Bedminster in 2016 to help her parents “age in place.”
“That’s what they needed, and I lived here in this house (with them) for 10½ years,” she explains.
But the time has come to part with the house. Her father died in March at 101, a little more than three years after her mother’s death at 95.
Catlin is making plans to move to a condominium, which could easily be closed up when she travels.
Priced at $7.45 million, the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath home — with 3,091 square feet of living space, inside and out — is listed with broker Linda Olsson of Linda R. Olsson Inc.
Built in 1951, the house stands on a little more than a quarter-acre, a block south of the Palm Beach Country Club.
The foyer leads to the living room and den, which are at the center of the home’s layout. To one side are the kitchen, a laundry room, a half-bath and the single-car garage. The bedrooms are on the opposite side of the house.
The living room has a vaulted ceiling and a fireplace. Details throughout the house include tile flooring, built-in cabinetry and moldings.
The kitchen, living room and a guest bedroom access the garden-view sunroom, which has served as a dining area and is flanked by a television room and a so-called “flex” space that could serve several uses. Impact-resistant glass doors look out to a covered loggia, a dining patio and, in the corner of the hedged backyard, the pool and patio area.
The bathrooms are finished with tile, and the kitchen features granite counters and stainless-steel appliances. The roof tiles and the air-conditioning system were replaced within the last five years.
Catlin says her parents were drawn to the home’s location and layout as well as its outdoor areas.
“I believe that they looked at several homes — and I know that they wanted the North End,” Catlin says. “They’d always had family homes with floorplans that worked for family and guests. So all of those things would have come into play when they were looking for a house.
“My mother loved nature and puttering around in the garden with her flowers, and so I think that was probably most important for my mother. For my dad, I think seeing my mother happy was No. 1 for him.”
To see more photos of 265 Fairview Road, click on the photo gallery near the top of this page.
For more than 20 years, Christine Davis has written about Palm Beach real estate in the “On the Market” feature in the Palm Beach Daily News.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Couple’s longtime home on Fairview Road in Palm Beach listed at $7.45M
Reporting by Christine Davis, Special to Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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By Christine Davis, Special to Palm Beach Daily News | USA TODAY Network
