Palm Beach estate tied to Standard Oil heiress sells for $10.6M

A Palm Beach home with a controversial past just sold to Robert Buford, president of the Chicago-based investment management company Planned Realty Group, for $10.6 million, property records show.

The 4,081-square-foot house at 1178 North Ocean Boulevard once belonged to Standard Oil heiress Anne Terry Pierce McBride, who died in 2005. McBride married Wolfgang Von Falkenberg only four days before her death, changed her will, and left her entire $50 million estate to him, including the home.

The hallmark case, which ended in a settlement after friends of McBride filed suit against Falkenberg alleging fraud and intentional interference with expectancy of inheritance, is used as a precedent when dealing with deathbed law in Florida.

Records show Falkenberg, trustee of the Wolfgang Von Falkenberg Revocable Trust, sold the home. The five-bedroom, six bathroom home stands on a 0.57-acre lot and sold for about $2,597 per square foot.

Earl Hollis of Earl Hollis Real Estate was the listing agent. The house has been on and off the market since 2009 and traded for its last listing price, according to Redfin. It comes with a pool and a separate beachfront parcel and cabana. The house was built in 1953 and was last sold for $915,000 to Frank Jensen as trustee of the Frank Jensen Trust in 1985, records show.

About a half mile south a 5,500-square-foot home at 202 Garden Road sold in June for $5.7 million or $1,042 per square foot to beer industry heir Peter Busch Orthwein. Even more recently, another nearby Palm Beach home sold for $6.18 million at 209 Via Tortuga. The home belonged to the Ourisman Florenz R. Estate, formally headed by developer Florenz Robert Ourisman of Palm Beach who passed away in 2015. His father, Col. Benjamin Ourisman, founded Ourisman Chevrolet, one of the largest car dealerships in the country.