Heir to Annenberg publishing fortune buys unit at The Bristol

UPDATED, March 30, 3:45 p.m.: An heir to the family that published TV Guide paid $7.5 million for a unit at The Bristol in West Palm Beach.

John Noffo-Kahn bought unit 701 at the luxury condo development at 1100 South Flagler Drive from the development group.

Noffo-Kahn’s grandmother by adoption is Janet Annenberg Hooker and his great uncle is the late Walter H. Annenberg, who created TV Guide in 1952 and Seventeen Magazine. He also owned the Philadelphia Inquirer. Annenberg eventually sold his media empire, Triangle Publications, to Rupert Murdoch for about $3.5 billion in 1988.

Two schools of communication carry the Annenberg name: The University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Noffo-Kahn previously owned a 15-bedroom, 14-bathroom, 24,393-square-foot historic estate in Newport, Rhode Island known as the Fairholme.

The Bristol is a 25-story, 69-unit condo tower with units ranging from 3,600 square feet to 14,000 square feet, priced from about $5 million to more than $40 million.

The Bristol is the first new luxury condo project to be built in West Palm Beach in over a decade. The development group, Flagler Investors, is led by Al Adelson and Gene Golub.

A large portion of sales have come from former estate owners in Palm Beach who were looking to downsize or wanted to move into a condo, according to Adelson.

Buyers at The Bristol include beauty mogul Sydell Miller, who closed on a full-floor penthouse for $42.6 million in March.

In July, real estate developer Stuart Bernstein and his wife Wilma paid $5.3 million for unit 803 at the luxury condo development. In late June, Washington, D.C. parking garage mogul Irwin Edlavitch and his wife paid $5.6 million for unit 1203 at The Bristol.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified John Noffo-Kahn’s relation to the Annenberg family.