A corner lot on Palm Beach’s far North End could have a brand-new look.
The Architectural Commission recently approved the majority of the plans for a new house and landscaping for 201 Onondaga Ave., a vacant lot on the northwest corner of North Ocean Boulevard.
The project conditionally approved in a 5-2 vote during the commission’s April 29 meeting would see a 5,026-square-foot two-story home in the vacant lot that once housed a 2,652-square-foot one-story house.
The plans call for a symmetrical two-story home with bay windows that flank the south-facing front entrance. The northern facade would feature a covered loggia, with the central bay’s second story detailed with a balcony on the northern and southern facade.
West of the home would be a small pool cabana with its own covered loggia, while an attached two-car garage would be positioned on the east side of the house, according to the plans.
As part of their approval, commissioners asked the design team to add more coconut palms for the front lawn, change the look of the garage entrance and readjust columns on the house and the adjacent pool house’s loggia.
Vice Chair Richard Sammons and Commissioner Elizabeth Connaughton voted in opposition. Alternate Commissioner David Phoenix voted in place of Claudia Visconti, who recused herself, as her firm, SMI Landscape, designed the proposal’s landscaping.
The property was owned for decades by the Sellers family, who sold it in May 2025 for a recorded $5.93 million to Kendall Castelo, according to courthouse records. According to the town’s permitting record, the demolition of the one-story house was approved before the start of the 2025-2026 season.
The lot measures a little more than a quarter of an acre and lies about half-mile south of the inlet at the north tip of the island.
The April meeting marked the design board’s second review of the house, which was designed by architect Pat Segraves of SKA Architect + Planner. During a February meeting, commissioners had ordered designers to restudy the building’s height, window layout and landscaping.
When the project returned in April, designers had lowered the house’s height by more than a foot and adjusted the second-story window layout to ensure the western facade’s three-windows and the eastern facade’s two-windows would be spaced evenly, Segraves told the commission.
Changes also included reducing the size of the proposed motor court on the east side of the property, he said.
Most commissioners found the house to be charming and commended the designers for incorporating their feedback from the February meeting.
The landscaping would be primarily positioned along the perimeter of the lawn, according to the plans, although the house’s southern entrance would be framed by African Tulip trees. The proposal’s U-shaped driveway also would feature an island planted with low-lying foliage.
Some commissioners took issue with what they saw as the plan’s minimal landscaping.
“Where’s the shade for the street?” asked Sammons, who suggested adding a tree on the driveway’s island might improve the landscape design. “It just seems a little bleak.”
He said the proposal’s landscaping inadvertently emphasized what he said was the large size of the house.
Commissioner K.T. Catlin acknowledged the landscaping could be increased, but said she she had no real issue with the plans proposed.
Jorge Sanchez, principal and co-founder of SMI Landscape Architecture, said much of the planned foliage would grow to look more prominent.
Notably, the project received no letters of opposition from neighbors. In years prior, far North End residents often opposed two-story residential developments on properties along the area’s narrow roads, as they viewed them out of character with the longstanding one-story houses there.
Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach design board OKs new two-story home for town’s North End
Reporting by Diego Diaz Lasa, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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