Henry Kravis Buys Vacant Lakefront Parcel on Cherry Lane for $9.2M via LLC
A white line defines a waterfront lot at 324 Cherry Lane in Palm Beach that sold this week for a recorded $9.2 million. The buyer was a limited liability company associated with Henry Kravis, whose estate at 700 N. Lake Way can be seen at the left of the photo. Kravis bought the estate for a record-breaking $50 million in 2006.
Measuring about 30,000 square feet with an 18-foot elevation, the vacant lot at 324 Cherry Lane has 100 feet of lake frontage and a deep-water dock.
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A limited liability company associated with philanthropist and Wall Street financier Henry R. Kravis has paid a recorded $9.2 million for the vacant lakefront lot immediately south of his 5-plus-acre estate on North Lake Way in Palm Beach.
Palm Beacher Cheryl Minikes sold the lot at 324 Cherry Lane via a warranty deed dated April 11 and recorded Monday by the Palm Beach County Clerk’s office.
Agents Paulette Koch and her son, Dana Koch, of the Corcoran Group handled both sides of the deal. They had set a price of $10.6 million — lowered from the original price of $11.9 million — for the narrow lot, which runs along Cherry Lane, two streets south of the Palm Beach Country Club. The parcel offers 100 feet of deep-water lakefront and has been vacant for several years, Paulette Koch said.
“It’s a gorgeous piece, about 30,000 square feet and very high — that’s what the attraction is. It has very good views overlooking the bicycle trail and the Intracoastal Waterway,” said Paulette Koch, who declined to discuss specific details of the transaction.
The sale marked the largest deal for a vacant lot since the season began in September, according to a search of properties listed in the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.
The deal is also the latest in a stream of transactions above $5 million recorded since the start of this month. The handful of sales included the largest house sale since late September — a recorded $13.5 million deal that Linda A. Gary Real Estate put together for a waterfront home at 757 Island Drive on Everglades Island. Those sales of houses and condos shook up the island’s housing market, which seemed mired in the doldrums this season.
Record-breaking deal
Kravis made headlines in January 2006 when he used a limited liability company to pay Joyce Fisher a recorded $50 million for her waterfront estate at 700 N. Lake Way. The private sale brokered by Lawrence A. Moens marked the largest price ever paid up to that time for lakefront property in Palm Beach.
The same Delaware-based limited liability company, 700 North Lake LLC, purchased the Cherry Lane lot, the deed shows.
A representative of the same limited liability company also signed a $62 million mortgage on the Kravis property in April 2010 with JPMorgan Chase Bank. The note came due on March 25 of this year, according to the mortgage document, but it was unclear Tuesday from property records whether the total amount borrowed had been repaid.
The Kravis estate includes a landmarked British Colonial-style home designed by noted society architect Maurice Fatio and built in 1938 for Popular Mechanics publisher Henry Haven Windsor Jr.
The square footage of the main house and two outbuildings totals nearly 20,000 square feet of living space, inside and out, including additions ordered by Kravis and his wife, Marie-Josée. A new pool, landscaping, and a boat dock and lift also were added in 2007, property records show.
Change of plans
The Minikes, meanwhile, own a house they bought in April 2004 at 583 N. Lake Way, several blocks south of the vacant lot that just sold. Cheryl Minikes paid $11.7 million for the Cherry Lane property when she bought it in May 2006, property records show.
“They had planned to build on (the lot) initially, but their plans changed,” Paulette Koch said.
Wall Street was well represented in this week’s lot sale. Cheryl Minikes is married to Michael Minikes, CEO and president of JPMorgan Clearing Corp. and former CEO and president of Bear Stearns Securities Corp. For several years, his wife has been involved with and served as chairwoman for Palm Beach fundraisers benefiting Friends of the Israel Museum.
Henry Kravis, who also has a residence in New York, is a private-equity investor who co-founded KKR, formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., and serves as its co-chairman and co-CEO. Last month, Forbes ranked him the 276th richest man in the world, tied with Palm Beacher William Koch. Both men have an estimated net worth of $4 billion, according to Forbes.
A pioneer of the leveraged or “bootstrap” buyout, Kravis engineered the $24.88 billion buyout of RJR Nabisco in 1988. His father was the late Raymond F. Kravis, an Oklahoma oilman and longtime winter Palm Beacher after whom the Kravis Center was named in 1992.
‘Revved up’ market
For the latest tax rolls, the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s office assigned Kravis’ Palm Beach estate an “estimated market value” of $33.77 million, ranking it No. 11 on the agency’s list of highest-valued properties on the island.
Koch and her son had listed the Cherry Lane lot for sale in late April of last year. But she said she had recently fielded interest from two other would-be buyers who seemed serious about the lakefront lot, but they did not move quickly enough.
“The season was slow to get started. But we’re revved up now,” Koch said. “The lesson (for buyers) is this: When you see something you like, you should act, because good properties will go.”
Henry Kravis and Cheryl Minike could not be reached for comment Tuesday.