Kim Bepler, a trustee of Fordham University, dropped $30 million on a waterfront home in Palm Beach.
Records show Bepler bought the house at 751 Island Drive from the estate of Pat Johnson, with her children signing as trustees.
Jim McCann and Christopher Hughes Bode of Premier Estate Properties had the listing, and Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate brought the buyer.
Bepler is the widow of the late Stephen Bepler, a longtime executive with New York-based Capital Group and himself a trustee of Fordham. He died in 2016, according to published reports.
Pat Johnson was the widow of Richard S. Johnson, the founder of Flagler National Bank. SunTrust Banks acquired Flagler in 1992, and following a 2019 merger with BB&T is known as Truist Bank. The Johnsons were the benefactors of their namesake Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum, which opened in 2008. Richard Johnson died in 2012, and Pat Johnson died in July of last year.
They bought the Island Drive home for $2.4 million in 1994, according to property records. It was built in 1988 on 0.4 acres, and includes a 4,700-square-foot home with five bedrooms, five bathrooms, one half-bathroom, a pool, a dock and 110 feet of waterfront, records and the listing show.
The Johnson family listed the house for $35 million in November, according to Zillow.
It marks the latest pricey deal in Palm Beach this season. Earlier this month, financier Mark Marcello dropped $36 million on an estate in the Mar-a-Lago Security Zone. Also this month, the estate of Patricia Ann Kahn sold an oceanfront home designed by the celebrated Palm Beach architect Marion Sims Wyeth for $28 million. In February, Ambrose K. Monell, the scion of a Gilded Age industrialist family, sold his lakefront home for $57 million.