Much-renovated 1990s-era townhouse fetches $11.7 million on Palm Beach’s near North End
An ocean-block townhouse larger than some Palm Beach single-family homes has sold for a recorded $11.7 million on the near North End.
Attorney Theodore “Ted” Babbitt and his wife, retired attorney Jessica Cheatham, parted wtih their four-bedroom townhome at 175 Sunset Ave. via a deed recorded Oct. 24.
The house and its separate poolside guesthouse have a combined 5,581 square feet of living space, inside and out. Of that space, 4,738 square feet is air conditioned.
On the buyer’s side were Neil D. and Marcella E. Cohen, the deed shows. Neil Cohen’s professional resume includes longtime tenure as president and CEO of District Photo Group, a Beltsville, Maryland-based company that prints digital photographs on gift items. He is a board member of Shutterfly Inc.
The townhouse encompasses the west side of its duplex on the north side of the street, just north of Royal Poinciana Way.
A private garden with a fountain is near the front door of a Palm Beach townhouse at 175 Sunset Ave., which just changed hands for a recorded $11.7 million.
The residence was built in 1990 and has been renovated over the years.
Among the improvements the sellers made were updating the kitchen, renovating the bathrooms, adding a generator, installing new floors and putting in impact-resistant windows and glass doors, Cheatham told the Palm Beach Daily News for an article about the townhouse in July.
They also carried out a down-to-the-studs renovation of the guesthouse.
The townhouse has upscale interior finishes, including pecky-cypress ceilings, paneling and wainscoting. The living room’s ceiling is 14 feet high.
Just sold for $11.7 million, a townhouse at 175 Sunset Ave. in Palm Beach is on the left side of the duplex on the near North End.
Ted Babbitt is affiliated with the West Palm Beach firm of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart and Shipley. He sold the townhouse as trustee of a trust in his name and was joined on the deed by his wife. Babbitt had paid about $3 million for the residence at the tail end of 2014, property records show.
Douglas Elliman Real Estate agent Chris Leavitt was the listing agent in the recent sale. He had priced the townhouse at $12.85 million when he put it on the market in April, and that price never wavered. The property went under contract Oct. 3, the Palm Beach Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service shows.
Elliman agents Cara McLure and Lisa Wilkinson represented the buyer’s side. McLure and Leavitt said they had no comment about the sale.
Cheatham told the Daily News in July that she and her husband no longer needed the extra space the townhouse afforded them.
“It has a guest house and a guest wing. We don’t live in the whole house anymore. We live in about a third of it, and so we are ready to downsize,” she said.
At 175 Sunset Ave., a rear terrace looks down at the private pool and guesthouse, which doubles as a pool cabana.
The townhouse’s layout includes a great room with living and dining areas. French doors in the great room open to the pool patio and a loggia with a summer kitchen and a barbeque grill.
Other areas on the main level include a library, a two-car garage and an elevator near the stairway. On the upper level, are guest suites and the primary suite, which has a sitting room and a terrace overlooking the pool and guesthouse.
A separate flight of stairs on the upper level ascends to a so-called “bonus room” on the third floor, which the sellers used as an exercise studio.
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. Email dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com, call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Renovated 1990s-era Palm Beach townhouse fetches $11.7 million
