A 1950s-era house that was the longtime vacation home of retired banker Terrence “Terry” Murray and his late wife, Suzanne, has sold on a prime street in Palm Beach’s Estate Section for a recorded $17.7 million.
The sold price represents nearly a 750% increase over the recorded $2.1 million the Murrays paid for the house at 218 El Brillo Way in 1997.
A trust was on the buyer’s side of the just-closed sale, according to the deed recorded Oct. 17. Attorney Scott W. Hoffman of the Palm Beach law firm Alley, Maass, Rogers & Lindsay serves as trustee of that trust, which is named after the property’s address. Hoffman declined to comment about the purchase.
Because of the privacy rules governing trusts, no other information about anyone else connected to the trust was immediately available in public records.
With modified Monterey-style architecture, the residence has four bedrooms and 6,657 square feet of living space, inside and out, property records show. The half-acre, lake-block lot lies about midway between the beach and the Intracoastal Waterway, two miles north of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.
Built in 1950, the house stands on one of the so-called “El streets,” which include neighboring El Bravo Way and El Vedado Road. Because of the architectural character and history of the neighborhood — and its proximity to the Worth Avenue shopping and dining district — the streets are considered premium real estate in the Estate Section.
Although the Estate Section is home to the Mar-a-Lago Club, El Brillo Way is not part of the security zone that closes to through-traffic when Trump is in residence at his private club.
Broker Linda Olsson of Linda R. Olsson Inc. was the listing agent for the house that just changed hands. She had it priced at $23.9 million when it entered the market in May and then lowered the asking to $20 million at the tail end of August, according to records in the multiple listing service. She landed the property under contract about three weeks later, and the sale closed Oct. 15.
“It was a pleasure to represent in the Murray family in the sale of their beloved family home,” Olsson said in a brief phone interview.
She declined to discuss specifics of the transaction.
Broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate represented the buyer. He could not immediately be reached for comment.
With residential ties to Narragansett, Rhode Island, the Murrays were married for 64 years before Suzanne Murray died at 83 in November 2024.
Terry Murray is the former CEO of Industrial National Bank in Providence, the forerunner to Fleet Financial Group and FleetBoston Financial Group. Instrumental in acquiring other banks, Murray was CEO of FleetBoston Financial Group when it was acquired by Bank of America in 2004.
The couple founded the Murray Family Charitable Foundation to support education, health-care initiatives and arts organizations.
The deed shows three of the Murrays’ married children sold the El Brillo Way house as trustees of the Suzanne Young Murray 2000 Revocable Trust.
The house on El Brillo Way was designed by noted society architect Gustav Maass with some of his architectural signatures, including a center-hall floorplan, a gracefully curved staircase and generously proportioned rooms.
The layout includes a formal living room with a fireplace, a formal dining room and an office. The family-and-media room look out to a coquina-stone patio anchored by an in-ground fountain. The patio is overlooked by a screened-in loggia with sun porches above, also screened.
The swimming pool, meanwhile, is secluded on the east side of the “glorious, lushly landscaped” lot, as Olsson’s sales listing described it. The house also has a two-car garage and a generator.
Monterey architecture is a fusion of architectural revival styles, including Spanish Colonial, British Colonial and French Creole. It originated in California and became popular in the United States beginning in the 1930s through the early 1950s, according to architectural historians. The style is named for the California city that widely embraced it.
The house on El Brillo Way was originally part of El Bravo Park, a 27-acre, ocean-to-lake property bought by engineer Frank Clements, a winter resident and engineer who intended to create his own estate. But in the early 1920s, Clements responded to the demand for villa sites and divided the property into 36 lots and two streets — El Bravo Way and El Brillo Way.
In 1921, first-generation Palm Beach architects Addison Mizner and Marion Sims Wyeth were the initial architects to design villas in El Bravo Park.
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. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Vintage Palm Beach house that last sold for $2.1 million in 1997 brings $17.7 million
Reporting by Darrell Hofheinz, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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