Trump’s former nominee for ambassador sells Palm Beach estate

Brian Burns and his wife Eileen sold the home for $8.8M to an executive of Chicago-based Magellan Development

Brian P. Burns and 217 Via Tortuga (Credit: Wikipedia and Realtor)
Brian P. Burns and 217 Via Tortuga (Credit: Wikipedia and Realtor)

President Trump’s planned ambassador to Ireland and his wife sold their home in Palm Beach for $8.8 million.

Brian and Eileen Burns sold their 6404-square-foot house at 217 Via Tortuga for $1,374 per square foot. The buyer is tied to Robin Tebbe, an executive with the Chicago-based real estate company Magellan Development.

The Mediterranean-style home has five bedrooms and seven bathrooms. The house was built in 1997. The couple had bought the home for $3.3 million in 1999, records show.

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The New York Times reported that President Trump had chosen Brian Burns to be the U.S. ambassador to Ireland in 2016, but a year later Burn’s backed off from the position, citing health reasons. Burns was also formerly a partner at a number of large law firms in San Francisco and sat on the boards of the Kellogg Company and the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Burns reportedly holds a massive collection of Irish art that is seen in photos of the Palm Beach estate.

Increasingly, wealthy out-of-state buyers are purchasing properties in Palm Beach.
In December, Tom Elghanayan and his wife Madeline Hult Elghanayan paid $8.1 million for a house in Palm Beach. In 2017, Capital International Research executive Kathryn M. Peters bought the estate of developer Florenz Robert Ourisman, at 209 Via Tortuga, for $6.2 million.