REAL ESTATE

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Another major property listed recently is expected to make headlines soon. It's the three-story, five-bedroom, six-bath lakefront estate at 210 Via Del Mar listed with Brown Harris Stevens' Lynn Ciklin. Priced at $25.9 million, the Maurice Fatio-designed, French Normandy-style home with a newly constructed dock and an adjacent lot owned by Kathryn and Leo Vecellio (he was recently named chairman of the D.C.-based American Road and Transportation Builder's Association) is available as a package deal or with the lot sold separately (but not before the house) for $7.9 million. The breakdown in the real estate market clearly isn't effecting the Swanson deal or the Vecellios, who paid $8.2 million for their home now offered at more than triple the price paid six years ago. As for Swanson, he paid just under $12 million in 2001 for the prime piece of land where he razed a much smaller home and guest house to make room for the Mediterranean-style, 15,700-square-foot main house, two guesthouses, a private dock and a seven-car garage. If you do the math, a reasonable profit was included, proving once again that the Palm Beach market remains a league of its own.

Another well-known Palm Beacher who earned a hefty profit just in time for the holiday season was Franklyn deMarco, co-owner of restaurant Ta-boo, who sold one of his multiple Palm Beach properties for close to $5 million. Sotheby's Betsy Fry sold the 5,500-square-foot, two-story villa to a Daytona Beach couple represented by Linda Gary's Heidi Wicky. Word is deMarco paid under $600,000 for the property in 1999. The villa, built in 2001, had an assessed value of $3.75 million.

Mixed Reviews
Beyond Palm Beach proper, how is the real estate market doing overall and what can we expect in 2008? That simply depends on who you ask.