North End house with beach access has European feel

When she was house hunting in 2003, Diana Abouzeid thought all she and her late husband, George, needed in Palm Beach was a cozy getaway.

After all, the couple already had an 8,000-square-foot family home at the Palm Beach Polo Club in Wellington when they began looking for a place on the island, where their youngest son, Andrew, was enrolled in Palm Beach Day School, today Palm Beach Day Academy.

We wanted just a small house in Palm Beach to use during the week, she explained.

But because she also wanted a newer home with storage space, an open floor plan and a yard, she ended up buying the late Judith Grubmans house at 1072 N. Ocean Blvd. On the North End, it stands on an oversize parcel at the corner of Orange Grove Road, one lot west of the beach.

The Mediterranean-style house had been built in 2000 and offered a little more than 7,500 total square feet. So while it was larger than the Abouzeids had originally set out to find, it was otherwise exactly what she wanted.

Its a good location, quieter up here, and has access to the beach, she says. My husband said wed sell the Wellington house, but we never did.

Husband preferred beach

Between them, she and her husband had seven children and 18 grandchildren, so the Abouzeids opted to keep the Wellington house as a vacation home. But George always loved Palm Beach, anyway, said Diana, who splits her time between Palm Beach and Crans-sur-Sierre, Switzerland.

After her husbands death in 2013 and with Andrew grown, she is downsizing. That four-bedroom, four-bath house is listed at $6.5 million through agent Carole Koeppel of Sothebys International Realty. The house has a two-car garage and comes with deeded beach access.

The exterior features stucco walls, a tile roof, a front patio delineated by a stone balustrade and second-floor balconies. A frontispiece surrounds the main entry, flanked by doors and windows with fanlights above.

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North End house with beach access has European feel