John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s former Palm Beach estate sells for $36M

It hit the market in May for $48M

Yoko Ono and John Lennon with 720 South Ocean Boulevard (Getty Images; Zillow)
Yoko Ono and John Lennon with 720 South Ocean Boulevard (Getty Images; Zillow)

The Palm Beach estate formerly owned by the late John Lennon and Yoko Ono sold for $36 million, five months after it was listed for sale.

Former Bear Stearns executive John Sites and his wife Cindy sold the oceanfront property at 720 South Ocean Boulevard, according to the Multiple Listing Service. It hit the market in May for $47.5 million with Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate. Dana Koch and Paulette Koch of the Corcoran Group represented the buyer.

A young family from the Northeast purchased the estate, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The late Beatle and his singer-songwriter-artist wife paid $725,000 for the mansion in January 1980, and Lennon was killed in December of the same year. Ono sold the 1.3-acre property in 1986 for $3.2 million.

The home was designed by architect Addison Mizner and originally built in 1920.

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The Sites paid $23 million for the seven-bedroom, 14,000-square-foot mansion in 2016. The property includes a tennis court, two swimming pools, a beachfront cabana and 180 feet of ocean frontage. It also features a three-car garage, nine bathrooms, three half-bathrooms, an oceanfront owner’s wing and a grand salon with a wet bar.

Though Lennon and Ono owned the mansion together for less than a year, they had time to make headlines in Palm Beach. “Pop Culture Florida” author James P. Goss wrote in his book that Lennon and Ono were once turned away from The Breakers because their companions weren’t wearing neckties.

The sale of the waterfront estate adds to a number of closings in Palm Beach. Buyers are snatching up luxury properties shortly after they hit the market, as the pandemic fuels demand. Just last week, the non-waterfront home at 201 El Vedado Road sold for nearly $21 million.

Nearby in North Palm Beach, billionaire Russell Weiner recently flipped the North Palm Beach homes he acquired in September from Elin Nordegren, the ex-wife of golfer Tiger Woods. He sold them for more than $48 million, marking a 45 percent gain in one month.