Estate of attorney asks $46M for Palm Beach home amid dispute

The estate of deceased attorney Robert Montgomery listed an oceanfront home in Palm Beach for sale for $46 million.

The owner of the house is a trust whose beneficiary is Montgomery’s widow, Mary Montgomery, who is in her 80s.

Montgomery, who died in 2008, was the lead attorney for the state of Florida in a 1997 settlement requiring major cigarette producers to pay $11.3 billion to the state for Medicaid costs for treatment of diseases related to smoking.

The trust that listed the home on South Ocean Boulevard with a $46 million asking price is in a dispute with the Montgomerys’ 53-year-old daughter, Courtnay Montgomery, who lived in the home until spring, when the trustees evicted her.

The trustees filed a petition in April to obtain a court order confirming their right to sell the home. Courtnay Montgomery responded by filing an objection to the petition, claiming that a sale would not serve her mother’s best personal or financial interests, according to her attorney Jennifer Carroll.

The case will be heard in October by a Palm Beach circuit judge, who will rule on whether the trust can sell oceanfront home, Carroll said.

The property includes a main house and a guesthouse with a total of 24,000 square feet of living space. The houses were designed by architect Addison Mizner and built in 1923. The property has seven bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a half bathroom, two swimming pools and a private dock.

The listing agent is Jim McCann of the Corcoran Group Palm Beach. [Wall Street Journal] – Mike Seemuth