David Cassidy’s former Fort Lauderdale home sells

LA buyer plans to pitch renovation as a TV show and move to Fort Lauderdale

David Cassidy and 1600 South Ocean Drive in Fort Lauderdale (Getty)
David Cassidy and 1600 South Ocean Drive in Fort Lauderdale (Getty)

A Los Angeles real estate investor who once hung David Cassidy’s poster on her bedroom wall acquired the late actor’s Fort Lauderdale home.

Cassidy, who rose to fame during his tenure on the 1970s show “The Partridge Family,” gave up his assets – including his Fort Lauderdale home – as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing during his divorce with wife Susan Shifrin. The couple paid $1.1 million for the property in 2001, and later renovated the house. Cassidy died of liver failure in Fort Lauderdale in 2017.

In this latest deal, investor Amy Raff and her husband Abe Rotchel paid $2.6 million for the waterfront property at 1600 South Ocean Drive. Property records show Scott Watkins of Maryland sold the house. Watkins and his partner Thomas White acquired the home at a bankruptcy auction in 2015.

Raff said she and her husband, a mortgage broker, plan to relocate to Fort Lauderdale from Los Angeles. The house is listed for rent with Esti Kadosh of Coldwell Banker, asking $25,000 a month.

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“We’ll keep it rented until we can draw up plans and modernize the house,” Raff said. She is looking for architects and contractors who can renovate the house and is in touch with producers to have the renovation televised.

The 7,167-square-foot home fronts the Mayan Lake and includes six bedrooms, six bathrooms, one half-bath, a pool and dock, a home gym and a gazebo. It sits on a 19,183-square-foot lot.

Raff is part of a growing group of people moving from California to Florida. “We want to be near the water and in a state that is not crazy, let’s put it that way,” she said, referring to the political landscape and lockdowns. “This is the right time for us.”