- Home for nearly a decade to the late Van Stewart, a Palm Beach townhouse at 255 Everglade Ave. is for sale with an asking price of $7.25 million.
- The townhouse has three bedrooms and 4,169 square feet townhome on the near North End, several streets north of the Royal Poinciana Way commercial district.
- Among the residence’s features are a dramatic curved staircase, a living room with a fireplace and multiple windows and glass doors.
Colorado resident Kent McCorkle is the trustee handling the estate of the late James “Van” Stewart, his friend of more than 40 years, who died in June at age 81.
As McCorkle explains it, Stewart bought his Palm Beach townhouse at 255 Everglade Ave. in 2016, about three years after the death of his husband, investor and philanthropist Bruce Bent.
For many years, the two men had lived across town on private Golfview Road in the landmarked house known as Hogarcito. Their home was the first Palm Beach house built for the late cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, several years before she and her second husband, the late stockbroker E.F. Hutton, embarked on constructing the much-more-famous Mar-a-Lago, which is today the home and private club of President Donald Trump.
“Van and Bruce were fortunate to live in many beautiful homes,” McCorkle recalls. “There was a townhouse on East 64th Street in New York City (and) a house in Kent, Connecticut. Then there was Hogarcito and a house on Beekman Place, New York City. They also had a beautiful home, Garrison Field, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and Van had an apartment at Hotel des Artistes in Manhattan.
“After Bruce died, Van downsized.”
In the hiatus following the sale of Hogarcito, Stewart remodeled two apartments across from what is today the Palm Beach Marina.
“But he was still looking for something, and when he found this Everglade Avenue townhome, it was exactly what he was looking for,” McCorkle says. “It was like an epiphany, perfect for him. Boom! And he never looked back.”
Stewart, who once worked in the airline industry, loved Palm Beach, McCorkle says. When he was not in town, Stewart liked to travel as well as visit his home in England — Ingleside Cottage in Broad Campden, a small village in Gloucestershire in the Cotswalds. He also spent time in New York City at his Hotel Des Artistes apartment.
Stewart furnished the Palm Beach townhome with pieces passed down from his family along with art and furniture that he had collected with Bent, McCorkle says.
“What appealed to him about the Everglade property, he could use it like a canvas for his life.
“He loved architecture. He studied it at (the University of Notre Dame) and then at Brown (University). Van was always designing and sketching.”
Offered for sale through Sotheby’s International Realty agent Ben Stein, the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath townhome stands in the near North End, several streets north of the shopping and dining venues of the Royal Poinciana Way commercial district.
Part of a row of similarly styled duplexes, the townhouse has 4,169 square feet of living space, inside and out. The residence is priced at $7.25 million, and the furniture is available through separate negotiations.
The townhouse has three levels. On the main floor, the foyer and the lower landing of the curved stairway open to the dining room, which in turn overlooks the living room, a few steps down from the stair hall.
The living room has a gas fireplace, and the adjacent den features a wall of bookcases. Sliding glass doors from these two rooms open to the rear courtyard patio and the pool and whirlpool spa.
The kitchen is on the other side of the stair hall. “Van was not a cook,” McCorkle explains. “A lot of spaces in the kitchen held his drafting materials. He’d lay out his draft paper on the island and do what he loved to do.”
Near the kitchen is a guest suite. “Guests have their own separate area with a nice window overlooking the courtyard with the fountain at the front of the house, which is separated from the street by hedges and is so private,” McCorkle says.
Completing the layout on the first level are a bathroom off the den, a powder room and the elevator.
On the top floor, the main bedroom suite comprises two walk-in closets, a bathroom and a sitting room with a terrace.
“The whole top story is a separate domain and is tremendously private,” McCorkle says.
Floors throughout are covered in marble, the same stone that appoints the bathrooms. Windows and doors are fitted with impact-resistant glass.
On the lowest level are a two-car, air-conditioned garage and the laundry room.
In keeping with his love of architecture, Stewart liked “the play of light,” as McCorkle puts it.
“The home has so much natural light and lots of open spaces. Both upstairs and downstairs on the pool-facing side, it’s all glass, as well as (windows) all around the cupula,” he says, referring to the area that surrounds the second-floor landing.
Stewart also appreciated the townhouse’s location near Bradley Place, McCorkle says.
The townhome is among eight built in 1985 on Everglade Avenue by the developer of the L’Hermitage luxury condominium complex, which fronts the Intracoastal Waterway on the opposite side of Bradley Place. Owners of the townhouses pay a monthly fee to access L’Ermitage’s lakefront pool and clay tennis court.
Everglade Avenue, meanwhile, has its own charms, McCorkle says: “It’s a one-way street to the east without much traffic, in a quiet neighborhood with considerate neighbors.”
To see more photos of 255 Everglade Ave. in Palm Beach, click on the photo gallery near the top of this page.
For more than 20 years, Christine Davis has written about Palm Beach real estate in the “On the Market” feature in the Palm Beach Daily News.
