- The house at 135B Root Trail was among three that were owned by Jimmy Buffett's real estate company when the singer died in September 2023.
- The house that just changed hands had an asking price of $4.775 million.
- Jimmy Buffett paid $950,000 for the house in 2013 and then carried out renovations. The property had an asking price of $4.775 million.
- The house that just sold shares a breezeway with one the Buffett family sold February for a recorded $4.795 million.
The last of three Palm Beach houses owned by Jimmy Buffett when he died in 2023 has sold for a recorded $4.2 million on Root Trail, just down the block from the beach where the “Margaritaville” singer and avid surfer could sometimes be seen catching some waves.
The buyer of the house at 135B Root Trail was a limited liability company named Found Me A Home LLC, which is managed by attorney Timothy J. Rooney Jr., records show. Rooney, who owns a condominium in Palm Beach, is the grandson of the late Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney.
The unassuming house was part of a compound of sorts Buffett assembled with purchases in 2013 and 2002 on the same street. Buffett bought the properties through his real estate ownership company, Sadeca Realty LLC.
The sale recorded April 16 closes the final verse on Palm Beach real estate’s affiliation with Buffett, which began in 1994 when the songwriter and his wife, Jane, paid a recorded $4.4 million for theirfirst home on the island. They sold that 1920s-era home at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. for a recorded $18.5 million in 2010 and it was later demolished.
The Daily News is the first media outlet to report the transaction on Root Trail.
The two-story house that just sold on Root Trail has two bedrooms and 2,660 square feet of living space, inside and out.
Rooney's career has included a role on the management team at Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway in New York. In early 2019, the Rooney family sold the racetrack and casinoto MGM Resorts International for areported$850 million in cash and stock.
Property records show Rooney has owned his Palm Beach condo at the landmarked Warden House on North Ocean Boulevard since 2021. That was the same year he sold, for a recorded $9.3 million, a Palm Beach house at 239 Emerald Lane on the North End. He paid a recorded $2.65 million for his condo.
Rooney could not immediately be reached for comment.
Buffett’s widow signed the deed to sell the house on Root Trail as an authorized member of Sadeca Realty LLC, which the document said was a “dissolved” Florida limited liability company. The deed also was signed by Richard A. Mozenter in the same role. Mozenter is a managing director of Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, a business-management firm that serves high-net worth clients in the entertainment industry, its website shows. The company has offices in Los Angles, New York, London and other cities.
The house that just sold was asking $4.775 million when the property went under contract. The property originally was priced at $6.125 million last summer, but that price dropped to $5.25 million before settling at the current asking.
Buffett bought the home in 2013 for a recorded $950,000, property records show.
All three Buffett homes on Root Trail entered the market in July, less than a year after the singer’s death from cancer in September 2023. He was 76 when he died in New York.
With Key West-style architecture, the house that just sold is similar to one next door that sold in February for a recorded $4.795 million. Both houses are connected by a brick-paved covered breezeway that leads to a courtyard.The house that just changed hands is the westernmost of the two buildings.
The side-by-side houses were redeveloped by the same team before Buffett bought them both in separate transactions in 2013. They were originally part of a two-building apartment complex dating from at least the 1920s.
All three of the houses on Root Trail were co-listed last summer by agent Blake Hanley of Brown Harris Stevens and his mother, broker Denise Hanley of Denise A. Hanley Inc.
At the house that just sold, Buffett had carried out a remodeling project and set up the downstairs area “like a hang-out room with a big-screen TV and a ping-pong table,” Blake Hanley told the Palm Beach Daily News when the house went under contract in early April. “It's a very casual set-up.”
Blake Hanley declined further comment. He and his mother also have never confirmed that the houses were linked to the Buffett family, although property and business records show that to be the case.
Broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate acted on behalf of the buyer, he confirmed. He declined to discuss the sale.
Angle also represented Rooney in the sale of the house on Emerald Lane nearly four years ago.
Buffett’s company paid a recorded $1.3 million for the house next door at 135A Root Trail, which has three bedrooms and 3,176 total square feet, property records show. That house sold via a deed recorded in late February to Alabama businesswoman and Palm Beach resident Amber Ramsay. The buyer was represented by agent Laura Semler of Brown Harris Stevens.
The first of the three Root Trail houses to sell was a two-bedroom landmarked cottage built between 1900 and 1915 at No. 138, on the opposite side of the street and catty-corner from the house that just sold. The cottage sold in mid-November for a recorded $6.1 million to a Montreal-based general partnership represented by agent Jim McCann of Premier Estate Properties. Buffett used the cottage’s one-bedroom outbuilding as his music studio. The singer had paid a recorded $802,000 for the cottage in 2002.
The same yearBuffettbought the cottage, his ownership company sold three condominiums in a building across town at 401PeruvianAve. for a combined $628,000, property records show.Buffetthad bought them for $555,000 via deeds recorded in 2000 and 2001.
In April 2023, about five months before his death, Buffett was named a billionaire for the first time by Forbes.com, which recognized not only his musical success but also his business acumen.
His death shocked fans who were devoted to him for his accessible personality, his laid-back lifestyle and his music, including iconic songs like “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” “Come Monday,” “Fins” and “A Pirate Looks at Forty.”
Among Palm Beach’s oldest streets, Root Trail runs between theoceanand North County Road, four streets north of The Breakers resort. Once home to an artists' colony, Root Trailis a narrow street lined with historic buildings, Key West-style cottages and newer homes. It is also within walking distance the North County Road and the Royal Poinciana Way commercial district.
Although he is most often associated with Key West, Buffettsaid he enjoyed Palm Beach's small-town atmosphere and deeply entrenched aura of privacy.
"No one bothers me. It's amazing. I'm not on television and that's the big difference. I can walk around with shocking anonymity. People don't know who I am," he told the Palm Beach Post in 2015.
He frequently performed at local charitable fundraisers, including benefits sponsored by the Everglades Foundation — for which he served for years as a board member — and the Navy SEAL Foundation.
During his nearly 30 years in town, Buffett and his wife bought and sold several houses. In all, about $37.8 million changed hands in his various Palm Beach real estate deals, courthouse records show.The since-razed mansion the Buffetts bought in 1994 at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. stood directly across the coastal road from the beach. Stretching for a block between South Ocean Boulevard and Middle Road, the estate included the 1926 main residence and an outbuilding, with a total of eight bedrooms and 16,897 square feet of living space, inside and out, according to property records and sales listings.
In all, the estate on South Ocean Boulevard measured a little more than one-and-a-half acres and faced 200 feet of oceanfront
Among the property's features were a tennis court fronting Middle Road and an oceanfront swimming pool on the front lawn, which was frequently enjoyed byBuffett, his wife and their family, according to one neighbor who lived nearby.
Originally known as Anetteamo, the house in the Estate Section was designed in the Mediterranean style by a noted society architect, Marion Sims Wyeth. But it was significantly expanded over the years, and those projects transformed it into a British Colonial-style residence, thanks to a design overhaul by architect Howard Major.
In June 2010, the Buffetts sold the estate to a company linked to health-care-equipment billionaire Jon Stryker, who at the time owned a historic home abutting the property. Stryker later put the formerBuffettestate on the market and sold it in 2014 in a $43 million deal that included his personal residence next door. The buyer was an entity controlled by Sir Peter Wood, a British insurance magnate and Palm Beach developer.
Wood ended up razing the oldBuffetthouse, cleared the land and built two oceanfront mansions on the property and an adjacent lot. One of those homes was for his own use on the parcel the Buffetts had owned, which was readdressed as 101 Via Marina; and the other house was developed and sold on speculation. The latter recently changed hands privately in a sale reported to have hit $73 million.
In 2011, a year after selling their seaside estate on South Ocean Boulevard, the Buffetts paid a recorded $4.95 million for a three-bedroom house across town at 309 Garden Road. Unlike some of their other properties in town, the deed shows they bought the house in their own names, with Jimmy's name appearing on the document as "James W.Buffett."
Part of a quiet, North End neighborhood, the custom home built in 2003 on Garden Road had a tropical feeling, according to the sales listing when the Buffetts closed the deal. With "island contemporary" architecture, the house had a "Zen-like retreat" ambience. The Buffetts owned the house for nearly nine years. They sold it in November 2020 for $6.9 million, courthouse records show.
TheRooney familyof the Steelers’ football and horse-racing empire has deep roots in Palm Beach. One of Art Rooney’s sons isTimothy J. Rooney Sr., a longtime president and CEO of the New York racetrack and casino. Rooney Sr. and his wife, June, for several decades have had a home on the island.
Rooney Sr.’s brother, Arthur J. Rooney Jr., and wife Kayalso have a home in Palm Beach. Their brother, the late John Rooney, also had a home in town, which his widow, JoAnn Rooney, still owns. Their son, Sean Rooney, and his wife, Colleen Rooney, also live in Palm Beach.
The extended Rooney family’s business interests includeownership of the Palm Beach Kennel Clubin West Palm Beach. The Frisbie Group and Terra Group have the former dog track and entertainment center under contract with plans to redevelop the property in phases as a mixed-use residential project offering “attainable housing,” according to the waiting-in-the-wings buyers.
*
This is a developing story. Check back for any updates.
dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com.
Darrell Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column. He welcomes tips about real estate news on the island. Emaildhofheinz@pbdailynews.com, call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz.
