Builder with ties to Trump asks $44.5M for spec home on Palm Beach island

A family business with ties to President Trump listed a spec home about two miles from Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Club in Palm Beach with a $44.5 million asking price.

Chris Deitz of William Raveis Real Estate is the listing agent for the island home that Columbus Ohio-based Schottenstein Real Estate Group is building without a buyer.

Schottenstein Real Estate paid $12.15 million in 2016 for the home-construction site at 520 Island Drive on Everglades Island, located in the Intracoastal Waterway just off the main island of Palm Beach.

Corey Schottenstein, a partner of Schottenstein Real Estate, told the Wall Street Journal that proximity to the president’s Mar-A-Lago resort may be “an extra attraction” to the 13,100-square-foot home, the largest ever built on Everglades Island.

Schottenstein also told the Journal that he and his brother Brian served during the 2016 presidential election as electors from the state of Ohio at the request of the Trump campaign. Schottenstein said his family knows President Trump personally and his parents are club members at Mar-A-Lago.

Schottenstein Real Estate is still in the construction phase of its six-bedroom spec home project on about an acre of land spanning Everglades Island, with docks planned on each side.

The home will feature a temperature-controlled wine room, a gym with a wall made of living moss, a terrace on the roof and a swimming pool that curves around the rear of the house.

The new-home project advanced after three attempts to win approval from the Palm Beach town government’s Architectural Commission.

Modern homes built on speculation are rare in Palm Beach, Schottenstein said in an interview with the Journal, and for buyers in that market, his company has wanted to be “one of the only games in town.” [Wall Street Journal] – Mike Seemuth