Retired Mellon chairman buys Palm Beach home for $15M

Sellers bought the house for $7M in 2020 when it was newly built

From left: Howard Lance and Martin G. McGuinn in front of 1556 North Ocean Boulevard (Mellon Financial Services, Maxar Technologies, Google Maps)
From left: Howard Lance and Martin G. McGuinn in front of 1556 North Ocean Boulevard (Mellon Financial Services, Maxar Technologies, Google Maps)

The retired chairman of Mellon Financial Services bought a Palm Beach home for $14.5 million from the former CEO of a space technologies company.

Property records show Martin G. McGuinn bought the house at 1556 North Ocean Boulevard from Howard and Kerrie Lance.

McGuinn retired from Pittsburgh-based Mellon in 2006, a year before it merged with New York City-based Bank of New York to become BNY Mellon. He financed his purchase with a $10 million mortgage BNY Mellon, records show.

Until 2019, Lance was CEO of Westminster, Colorado-based Maxar Technologies, which designs and produces satellites and spacecraft components, according to its website. He currently serves as board chairman of Nashville-based Change Healthcare, an analytics company that caters to health care professionals. He is also a former adviser to Blackstone.

The 4,824-square-foot house sits on about a third of an acre and was built in 2020. It comes with four bedrooms, four full bathrooms and one half-bathroom.

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The property last sold for $7.2 million in 2020, when the Lances bought it from an entity led by Susan Shulman, the wife of Ron Pertnoy, a principal of West Palm Beach-based Shapiro Pertnoy Companies, The Real Deal reported at the time. Shulman’s entity bought the previous home on the site for $2.7 million in 2018 and demolished it before her husband’s firm built the current house.

The sale showcases continuing demand in Palm Beach’s luxury market.

Earlier this month, a scion of the Willow Grove, Pennsylvania-based Asplundh tree trimming service sold her Palm Beach home for $6.5 million to buyers who are also rooted in the business. And the founder of Fiji Water sold a non-waterfront estate for $44.9 million, $6.2 million more than its purchase price less than a year ago.

In February, the former ambassador to Brazil and the Netherlands bought an oceanfront Palm Beach townhouse for $7.5 million.