Custom oceanfront home planned for Estate Section

Architectural commissioners on Friday will review plans for the custom house that seasonal Palm Beach businessman Peter Wood has commissioned to replace the one where Buffett and his wife, Jane, lived for years.

The Buffets sold the 1920s-era house at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. in 2010 to billionaire philanthropist Jon Stryker, who in turn, passed it on to Wood for a recorded $22.9 million last May. Wood wants to replace that house with a two-story Palladian-style residence featuring a partial basement and a two-story guesthouse. Harold Smith of Smith and Moore Architects executed the design. The propertys address, by the way, has been changed to 101 Via Marina, reflecting the name of the side street alongside the 1.6-acre lot.

The Estate Section property changed hands simultaneously with two others three months ago in a 2.6-acre deal that saw Corcoran Groups Paulette Koch and Dana Koch as the listing agents. Broker John O. Pickett III was on the buyers side of the negotiating table. Companies controlled by Englishman Wood and his business partner, British homebuilder Ken Parker, bought the three properties.

Under the auspices of Royalton U.S. Holdings, theyre planning a new spec house for the other oceanfront lot at 530 S. Ocean Blvd. Details havent yet been released.

Meanwhile, Pickett reports that an off-the-market sale is pending for a third property Tre Fontaine, the landmarked 1924 house at 61 Middle Road that Stryker restored and used as his personal residence. It was designed by society architect Marion Sims Wyeth, who lived there for 15 years. Stryker sold it and the vacant lot at 530 S. Ocean Blvd. for a combined $20 million.

Pickett had planned to list Tre Fontaine for sale, but he never got the chance. The house went under contract within a week after the big sale closed in May. Brown Harris Stevens agent Ben Stein brought the unidentified buyer to the negotiating table. No word yet on the amount that will change hands or when the sale will close.

Buffet fans, by the way, can still drive by the North End house he and his wife bought in late 2011 on Garden Road as well as properties he owns on Root Trail.

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And speaking of Jimmy Buffett The mayor of Margaritaville himself is featured in the Corcoran Groups new national Live Who You Are ad campaign. Celebrity lenser Annie Leibovitz photographed a barefoot Buffett at one of his Palm Beach homes, standing next to a vintage car in a yard that looks straight out of Key West.

Noted landscape architect Mario Nievera whose work can be a selling point in local real estate listings also is part of the campaign. Liebowitz photographed the principal of Nievera William Design partially submerged in a lushly landscaped swimming pool.

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Custom oceanfront home planned for Estate Section