Car dealer sets Palm Beach resi record with $170M purchase

Luxury car dealer Michael Cantanucci paid $170 million for an oceanfront estate in Palm Beach, setting a record for single-family home sales on the island. 

Bob Stiller, who founded Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and his wife, Christine, sold the 1.6-acre property at 589 North County Road, sources told The Real Deal. The Wall Street Journal reported that Cantanucci is the buyer. 

The 20,195-square-foot mansion was built in 2006 and expanded in 2015. It has 10 bedrooms, 11 full bathrooms and seven half-bathrooms, as well as a pool and summer kitchen. 

The Stillers paid just $25 million for the property in 2014, records show. In addition to Green Mountain, Stiller also founded the brand of rolling papers called E-Z Wider in the early 1970s. 

Cantanucci owns New Country Motor Car Group, which calls itself one of the largest independent car dealerships in the country. It has sites in New York, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland and Pennsylvania. It sells Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Lexus, Maserati, Porsche, Mini and cars from other makers. 

The off-market deal adds more rocket fuel to Palm Beach’s ultra-luxury market, despite a slowdown in the number of sales across South Florida. Deals at this price will typically occur regardless of what is going on in the general market. 

Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates represented the seller, while Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate represented the buyer.

The property is just north of billionaire Nelson Peltz’s nearly 7-acre estate.

The $170 million sale price is just shy of the statewide record set by billionaire Larry Ellison’s $173 million purchase of an oceanfront estate in Manalapan last year. It also surpasses billionaire William Lauder’s $155 million purchase of an oceanfront compound at 1495 North Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach, which the widow of late conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh sold in February. 

At least two waterfront estates seek to break all of those records. Spec home developer Todd Michael Glaser and his partners are asking $218 million for 10 Tarpon Isle, which is on its own private island in Palm Beach. And Lauder, executive chairman of Estee Lauder Companies, listed two adjacent vacant Palm Beach parcels for $200 million, with Jim McCann of Premier Estate Properties.