Half-acre estate in Palm Beach fetches $8.6 million

A trust connected to Virginia real estate developer Dwight Schar and his wife Martha paid $8.6 million for a half acre on Gulfstream Road in Palm Beach.

Gulfstream Road property is regarded as prime Palm Beach real estate because of the short road’s secluded location two blocks south of Worth Avenue, between South County Road and South Ocean Boulevard.

In simultaneous off-market transactions, the Schar Family Trust paid $5.6 million for a vacant quarter-acre lot at 125 Gulfstream Road and $3 million for a three-bedroom house next door at 133 Gulfstream Road.

The combined properties, measuring a half acre, long comprised the winter estate of Claire McGinnis Stephenson. She died in April. Her husband Garrick C. Stephenson died in 2007.

Two trusts affiliated with the Stephensons sold the properties.

Broker Lawrence Moen, who represented the Schar family in the transactions, could not be reached for comment.

The Schars made headlines by selling the sprawling Casa Apava estate in Palm Beach in four pieces, including the $71.2 million sale of the oceanfront half of the estate to hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones II last March.

The Schars also sold one of Casa Apava’s lakefront lots in October 2014 to casino magnate Steve Wynn for $20 million. [Palm Beach Daily News] — Mike Seemuth