Don and Katrina Peebles flip Wellington house, doubling price in six months

Six months after buying it, Don and Katrina Peebles flipped a Wellington house in the gated Palm Beach Polo & Country Club for double their purchase price. 

Records show the couple sold the home at 2650 Sheltingham Drive to 3540 Ambassador LLC, a Delaware entity, for $6.2 million. The true buyer is unknown, but the purchasing entity appears to be named for the address of a house former Vice Media CFO Ramin Arani sold to Louise Riggio, wife of Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio, for $8.1 million last month. 

Carol Sollack of Engel & Völkers Wellington had the listing, and Casey Flannery of Equestrian Sotheby’s International Realty brought the buyer.

The sale closed during a particularly quiet off-season for Wellington. Because it is an Olympic year, many of the village’s wealthy equestrian residents are busy preparing for competition in Paris, Sollack said. They’re much more preoccupied with their horses than their houses. 

“An Olympic horse is worth more than this house,” she said. “Especially one that wins a medal.”

Don Peebles is a developer and founder of the Miami Beach-based Peebles Corporation, where Katrina Peebles is a principal and creative director. The firm’s notable projects include the Bath Club in Miami and the proposed Angels Landing in Los Angeles, and a condo conversion in New York City. 

The couple bought the Wellington house for $3.1 million in January from the estate of the late Johnson & Johnson heiress Diana Firestone, records show. Firestone’s daughter, Alison Firestone Robitaille, sold her equestrian estate in Wellington for $10.9 million in November. 

The Peebles couple renovated the Sheltingham Drive house extensively, updating the flooring, bathrooms, kitchen and landscaping, with Katrina Peebles leading the project’s design, Sollack said.  

The 5,900-square-foot house was built in 1998 on 0.8 acres, records show. It has five bedrooms, five bathrooms, one half-bathroom and a pool, according to property records and the listing. 

Sollack said the couple renovates and flips Wellington homes as a kind of “hobby” since their daughter, Chloe Peebles, is a showjumper who competes in the equestrian village. 

It’s a lucrative hobby to have, considering newly constructed and renovated luxury Wellington homes are in high demand and short supply. 

The couple already had a buyer when the Sheltingham Drive home was listed on June 27, Sollack said, adding that “There’s just not a ton of product.”