Developer and home builder Carl Sabatello of Sabatello Cos. just used an ownership company to pay a recorded $13.9 million for a 1950s-era lakeside house on Everglades Island in an off-market deal, records show.
Fine art dealers Edward and Deborah Pollack sold the house at 584 Island Drive, which they had owned since 1997 and had homesteaded in the latest tax rolls, according to courthouse records. The Pollacks have a namesake gallery on Worth Avenue.
Sabatello is planning to raze the residence and build a new two-story home on speculation, he told the Palm Beach Daily News.
The former Pollack house stands on a lot of about four-tenths of an acre, three properties north of the bridge that connects Everglades Island to the rest of Palm Beach. The east side of the property faces the channel that borders the Everglades Golf Course.
Built in 1956, the house has five bedrooms and 5,565 square feet of living space, inside and out, property records show.
Sabatello heads Sabatello Cos., a Palm Beach Gardens company founded in 1977 that has developed and sold a number of houses in Palm Beach. Sabatello manages 584 Island LLC, the Florida limited liability company that just bought the house on Island Drive.
Agent Bill Yahn of the Corcoran Group said he represented the buyer’s side of the sale, which closed Wednesday.
Broker Linda Olsson of Linda R. Olsson confirmed she handled the sellers’ side.
Yahn and Olson were unavailable for further comment, and the Pollacks couldn’t be reached.
Sabatello expects to present plans for the new house in June to the Architectural Commission, he said. Once the building permits are issued, construction should take about 18 months, he added.
The busy real estate market has made higher-quality properties, such as good-size lots with waterfront, harder to find in Palm Beach, he acknowledged.
“It is an unusual time in the real estate world generally but in Palm Beach in particular,” he said.
From the archives: Art dealer Pollack speaks about animals, criminals in Palm Beach artwork
Yahn has represented Sabatello Cos. in other transactions in Palm Beach, most recently in two sales on the North End. In March, the company sold, for a recorded $8.45 million, a just-completed house Sabatello Cos. built on speculation at 1575 N. Lake Way on the Palm Beach’s North End. The buyers in that sale were private-equity specialist Ian MacTaggart and his wife, Christine, who were represented by broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate.
More: New house built by Sabatello fetches $8.48 million before it even hits MLS
Also in March, Yahn acted on behalf of Sabatello Cos. when it sold a vacant lot at 261 Nightingale Trail with a contract for Sabatello Construction of Florida to build a house there for the buyer. Brown Harris Stevens agent Margit Brandt represented the buyer.
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This story was updated from a previous version.
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