The prominent south-island property known as Palazzo Di Mare, which has been compared to the glittering Long Island mansions described in “The Great Gatsby,” sold at auction Thursday to a buyer from Texas for $10,250,000. The buyer was required to pay a 12 percent premium in addition to the gavel price, raising the total amount paid to $11,480,000.
The $10,250,000 sale proceeds go to the seller, a Vero-based LLC. The 12 percent buyer’s premium, amounting to $1,230,000, goes to the auction company and real estate agents involved in the transaction.
The sale was conducted by Concierge Auctions in cooperation with Premier Estate Properties. The Premier team of Cindy O’ Dare and Richard Boga served as local listing agents and also brought the buyer, who Boga says was referred to him and O’Dare by Premier’s Fort Lauderdale office.
“This was the 13th auction conducted by Concierge in Vero Beach in the last five years, and this property achieved the highest sales price in Vero in 20 months,” said Katie Lawless, director of business development at the auction company.
One of those 13 auctions was the prior sale of Palazzo Di Mare two and half years ago for $8.8 million, including the buyer’s premium paid at that time.
The LLC that purchased the property undertook an extensive 18-month renovation that greatly upgraded the house and grounds and then listed the estate with O’Dare and Boga in March for $17 million. When the property had not sold by September, the decision was made to offer it at auction to achieve “a defined date of sale.”
There was substantial interest in the property, with 13 bidders submitting their proof of funds and putting $100,000 into escrow in order to participate in the online auction, but the sale, which started at 4 p.m. on Nov. 5, got off to a slow start, with one $3 million bid the only sign of action for more than 48 hours.
It wasn’t until 11 minutes before the auction’s 7 p.m. Thursday closing time that things started to pop when bidder #4338 offered $4 million at 6:49 p.m. EST. Over the next couple of minutes, a flurry of bids, each by a different bidder, pushed the offer up in half-million and million-dollar increments to $7 million.
Then, at 6:52 p.m., bidder #26909 offered $8 million, a bid immediately topped by an offer of $8.5 million by bidder #21038.
From then on, it was a contest between those two bidders that involved five more offers culminating at 6:58 p.m. with the winning bid of $10,250,000 put in by #26909, the buyer from Texas.
The sale price amounted to a little more than 60 percent of the most recent list price of $17 million. Despite that differential, both Boga and Lawless describe the auction as a success.
“The sellers reached out to Concierge Auctions because they wanted a date-certain sale,” said Lawless. “The sellers are pleased that the sale will be consummated before the end of the month.”
Lawless said bidders came from five states – Florida, New York, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas – and two foreign countries, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Even though it was primarily an online auction “four bidders were on site along with their representatives, [Thursday evening, including] … the winning bidder and his agent,” Lawless said.
Completed in 1991, the 23,315-square-foot house sits on a 5-acre, ocean-to-river lot with 205 feet of ocean frontage and 198 feet of river shoreline.
The house has seven bedrooms, nine full baths and two half-baths, two elevators, stone and hardwood floors, a 14-car underground garage, a beautifully tiled swimming pool and extensive landscaped grounds, including a sweeping back lawn that would do a 5-star seaside resort proud.
The day after the sale, the buyer was required to submit an additional deposit, increasing the amount in escrow to 12 percent of the sale price, and execute the purchase agreement. The buyer has until Dec. 6 to close the all-cash sale, but Lawless says the deal is on track to close by the end of the month.
