Payday lender CEO buys Palm Beach house for $26M

James Berwind listed the property for $37.5 in 2019

320 Island Road, Palm Beach (Google Maps)
320 Island Road, Palm Beach (Google Maps)

A member of the Berwind family sold his lakefront Palm Beach estate at a big discount off its original listing price in 2019.

Records show James D. Berwind sold the home at 320 Island Road to Jones Lakeland LLC for $26.1 million.

The buyer, Jones Lakeland LLC, managed by W. Allan Jones, just sold his Palm Beach home for $27 million. Jones is founder and CEO of Check it Into Cash, a company that provides payday advances to walk-in customers. Jones founded the company in Cleveland, Tennessee in 1993. According to his website, it’s the third-largest payday lending company in the nation.

Berwind, an environmental architect and animal-rights activist, is the son of the late Charles Graham Berwind Jr., the former leader of the Berwind Group. The company was historically involved in the coal industry and later became an investment management firm.

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Property records show Berwind bought the property for $9.7 million in 2012. He and his partner, real estate agent Kevin Clark, built the existing home in 2014. The two listed the house in 2019 for $37.5 million. The asking price dropped to $32.5 million in December.

Condon Cris with Sotheby’s International Realty listed the 7,526-square-foot house, while Suzanne Trapani-Frisbie of Premier Estate Properties brought the buyer.

Berwind’s two-story home has five bedrooms, six bathrooms, two half-bathrooms, a gym and a garage with room for five cars, according to the listing. Outside, the home has an infinity pool that overlooks 232 feet of water frontage with views of the Everglades Club golf course.

Other recent sales in Palm Beach include jewelry designer Judith Ripka selling her home for $12.7 million, and a real estate investor selling his waterfront house for $18.4 million. This month, a spec mansion in Palm Beach went on the market asking for $140 million in a record-setting listing.