Daily News Home & Loggia Editor
Former U.S. Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Mary M. Ourisman
and her husband, businessman Mandell “Mandy” Ourisman, have a new lakefront
home on the South End.
The warranty deed recorded in the diplomat’s name on March 29 showed she paid
$3.815 million for Beatriz Ford’s Palm Beach Regency-style house at 300
Regents Park Road off South Ocean Boulevard.
Ford, a stalwart on Palm Beach’s charity scene, had shared the house for many
years with her late husband, investor and sportsman George Ford, who died in
2004.
In January, Mary Ourisman served as chairwoman of the 55th annual
International Red Cross Ball at The Mar-a-Lago Club.
Fite Shavell & Associates had last listed the house at $4.995 million.
Fite Shavell agents involved in the deal included Scott M. Gordon, Samantha
Curry and Carla Christensen.
Cris Condon of Sotheby’s International Realty represented Ourisman.
The four-bedroom house — with another four bedrooms above the garage for staff
— faces the Intracoastal Waterway on a cul-de-sac just south of the Southern
Boulevard traffic circle. It was built in 1959 by developer Clarence Mack in
the Palm Beach Regency style.
Encompassing more than 7,460 square feet of living space, inside and out,
property had been listed at one point for $5.695 million.
Property records show that Mary Ourisman owns two apartments in Palm Beach,
one in the Kirkland House on Worth Avenue and the other at the Palm Beach
Hotel Condominium.
Ford, meanwhile, has long divided her time between Palm Beach and Newport,
R.I., where she owns a residence.
The house is the second in six months to sell on Regents Park Road, which is
sometimes referred as Regent Park Road. Last September, Paul Thomas “Tom”
Murry, president and CEO of Calvin Klein, and his wife, Lynda, bought the
longtime home of the late Louis and Susan Bernstein at No. 100 for a
recorded $4.25 million. Agents Wally Turner and Candee Weitzman of Sotheby’s
International Realty were the listing agents in that deal, while Tom Shaw of
Linda A. Gary Real Estate acted on behalf of the Murrys.
Right before the Murrys bought their home, by the way, the house had been
listed at nearly an identical price as the Ourismans’ new home, although No.
100 had about 1,150 fewer square feet of living space.
■
A return to the market — Here’s yet another sign that the Palm
Beach real estate market is recovering nicely, thank you very much:
Higher-end developer Donald Malasky of Malasky Homes, who has been out of
the market for a while, is well on his way to building two new homes for
sale in Palm Beach, where his family business has developed many residential
projects during the past two decades.
Just not lately.
Malasky’s West Palm Beach company last week closed on its $975,000 purchase of
a North End house built in 1951 at 268 Jamaica Lane, which the developer
plans to replace with a four-bedroom “spec” home — to be built without a
specific buyer in mind — and priced at slightly more than $4 million.
Once it is built, it will join Malasky’s other new spec project, a slightly
larger four-bedroom house at 226 Kenlyn Road — also on the North End — that
has already passed the town’s architectural review process. That property is
being marketed at a precon-struction price of $4.495 million by Christian
Angle Real Estate, which had the listing for Eugene P. Conese’s 1943 house
there when Malasky Homes bought it in January for $1.38 million, according
to property records.
On Jamaica Lane, listing agent Mary Boykin of Sotheby’s International Realty
had priced the two-bedroom, Bermuda-style house at $1.2 million for the
seller, the estate of the late Margaret A. Whitehouse. The house has 2,743
square feet of living space, inside and out.
Malasky Homes bought the house through a limited liability company named DBS
Holdings 2, according to the March 30 deed recorded by the Palm Beach County
clerk’s office.
Malasky completed his last Palm Beach spec home, a British Colonial-style
house at 11 Via Vizcaya in 2009, just in time for the economic slowdown. And
it was indeed a slow go for that house, which didn’t sell until March 2011,
its price having dropped from its original $13.5 million to $11.95 million
before the property finally sold to a trust for a recorded $9.96 million.
Jim McCann of the Corcoran Group represented Malasky in that deal, with Cris
Condon of Sotheby’s International Realty acting on behalf of the buyer, The
P.C. Grace FL Revocable Trust.
When that house sold, Malasky said it marked the first time in many years that
his company hadn’t had a property for sale in Palm Beach — and he added that
with land values still high, he wasn’t sure when he would be back in the
market with a new spec house.
Both of the new houses are being designed by Roger Janssen of Daily Janssen
Architects in a modified Caribbean colonial style. The Jamaica Lane project
is still being reviewed by the town Architectural Commission.
Construction of both houses will take about a year, Malasky says: “We plan to
break ground as soon as the demolition permits are issued.”
■
That was Zen, this is now — First listed for sale more than two
years ago, an extensively renovated home at 160 Reef Road on the northern
tip of the Palm Beach has sold for about $2.58 million, according to the
warranty deed.
Christina H. Wilson owned the four-bedroom house through a limited liability
company named after the property’s address. Agent Bill Kirk of Sotheby’s
International Realty had last listed the house, built in 1951, for $2.995
million. Citing confidentiality agreements, Kirk is keeping mum about the
deal, as is the buyers’ agent, broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle
Real Estate.
The buyers were Tony and Lina Gagliano of Ontario, according to the warranty
deed recorded March 21 by the county clerk. Tony Gagliano is executive
chairman and CEO of St. Joseph Communications, one of Canada’s largest media
companies. The couple is known for their support of medical, charitable and
cultural causes, including Luminato, Toronto’s Festival of Arts &
Creativity, which Tony Gagliano helped found.
Wilson had reworked the entire front facade with Jacqueline Albarran of SKA
Architect Planners in Palm Beach. Rooms were designed to reflect her
appreciation of the Far East, with bamboo-clad ceilings, hardwood and
limestone floors, intimate Zen gardens and custom cherry cabinetry.
“This house could be anywhere in the world. It’s like going to a spa,” Wilson
told the Shiny Sheet in December 2009, when the house was listed — small
world, don’t you know — by Christian Angle Real Estate for $3.995 million.
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