Trust linked to Motorola heirs buys Palm Beach estate for $46M

A trust with apparent ties to the heirs of the Motorola fortune bought the Palm Beach estate of financier Jeffrey Walker for $46 million in an off-market deal.

Records show that Walker and his wife, Suzanne, sold their waterfront home at 662 Island Drive to a trust associated with 101 Waters Edge LLC, a Delaware corporation with a Chicago mailing address frequently used by the Galvin family, heirs of late Motorola founder Paul Galvin, to register LLCs and non-profit corporations.

The Walkers had called the 9,600-square-foot, six-bedroom mansion home since buying it in 2015 for $19 million. The roughly half-acre property on Everglades Island includes 150 feet of waterfront. The $46 million sale comes to about $4,780 per square foot.

“I think it’s indicative of what a discerning buyer will pay for an exceptionally well-executed property,” said Corcoran’s Suzanne Frisbie, who represented the Walkers in the sale. Palm Beach broker Christian Angle repped the buyers.

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Jeffrey Walker spent more than 20 years as CEO of CCMP Capital, a $12 billion private equity firm formerly known as JPMorgan Partners, which split off from JPMorgan Chase in 2006. Jeffrey and Suzanne Walker now run the Walker Family Foundation.

The deal marks the second recent Palm Beach acquisition for entities linked to the Galvin family. In May, 101 Waters Edge LLC paid $23.9 million for a non-waterfront home at 101 Gulfstream Road. Together with this week’s deal, the acquisitions total $69.9 million for just under one acre of Palm Beach real estate.

Though relatively new to South Florida, the Galvin family has historically been a prominent one in Chicago. The family maintained control of Motorola until 2003, when Christopher Galvin, Paul’s grandson, resigned and the family began selling its remaining stake in the telecommunications company.

Christopher, his brother Michael and his father, Bob, then partnered with Christopher Merrill to establish the investment firm Harrison Street Real Estate Capital in 2005. Christopher’s wife, Cindy Bardes Galvin, is the founder of luxury interior design firm Bardes Interiors, which operates out of a co-op at 389 South Lake Drive in Palm Beach.

Demand for luxury homes in Palm Beach has grown exponentially over the last two years, limiting inventory and driving prices to record highs.

Spec home developer Todd Glaser recently flipped two waterfront Palm Beach homes for a combined $70 million, $20 million more than he paid for them the year before.

Earlier this month, Warren Kanders, the ousted former vice chair of the Whitney Museum, flipped his waterfront estate for $40 million — a 57 percent return after a year of ownership — and a different oceanfront Palm Beach mansion flipped for $86 million just nine months after being purchased for $64 million.