Seabreeze Ave. sale linked to buyer of Marjorie Merriweather Post home

By Darrell Hofheinz

Daily News Staff Writer

In Palm Beach, real estate transactions can be as multi-faceted as a marquise-cut diamond on a socialite’s finger.

And if you don’t believe that, you weren’t paying attention last week to the wild sales ride involving landmarked Hogarcito. That’s the house cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post built in 1921, predating Mar-a-Lago by six years. At 17 Golfview Road, Hogarcito changed hands twice within two days, first for about $9 million and then for about $13 million. And the first sale was structured so it took a couple of years to close. The Shiny Sheet covered both sales in detail.

Now it looks like a third property at 147 Seabreeze Ave. is part of that rollercoaster ride of transactions: The same players involved on the buyer’s side of the second Hogarcito deal were on the buyer’s end of last week’s $4.275 million sale of the house on Seabreeze. Those players include Massachusetts attorney Robert G. Bannish and real estate agent Heidi Wicky of Linda A. Gary Real Estate. Both are keeping mum.

Bannish, president of Rice Heard & Bigelow in Boston, manages the two Florida limited liability companies that bought the houses. According to the deeds, 17 Golfview Road LLC paid $12.9 million for Hogarcito just a day before the Palm Beach County Clerk’s office recorded the sale of the house on Seabreeze Avenue. The latter buyer was named 147 Seabreeze Avenue LLC.

Handling the seller’s side on Seabreeze Avenue were husband-and-wife real estate agents Ronnie and Jennifer Hasozbek-Garcia of Illustrated Properties. They had marketed the property privately for two weeks and had intended to advertise it for sale. But they never got a chance, according to Ronnie Hasozbek-Garcia. The buyer came knocking before the paperwork could be readied to list the three-bedroom house in the ocean block of historic Seabreeze Avenue, one of Midtown’s prime streets. Ronnie Hasozbek-Garcia declined to discuss the parties involved.

With about 4,300 total square feet, the Mediterranean-style house with a tower room changed hands with a separate one-bedroom guest apartment. The latter was built during a renovation in 2006.

The house was sold by a trust in the name of Ray B. Zemon, according to the deed recored July 1. Acting as trustee, Zemon signed the deed with his wife, Christine Annette Bennett. Zemon and Bennett bought a house for $1.65 million last month at 106 Via Quantera in Palm Beach Gardens. The Hasozbek-Garcias took part in that purchase with agents Andrew Leibowitz and Michael Leibowitz of Leibowitz Realty Group.

Zemon, who declined to comment, had owned the house on Seabreeze since 2005, when he paid about $2.88 million for it, records show. With ties to Chicago, he built a career as an investment counselor and asset manager, then co-founded Shopbop.com, an online retailer of women’s apparel.

With about 4,300 total square feet, the Seabreeze house is much smaller than 10,236-square-foot Hogarcito. So why would the buyer of a large historic property also buy a smaller house across town? The Seabreeze house could serve as a guesthouse. Or it could become a place to get away from the noise and mess of construction, should the new owner of Hogarcito undertake a major project there.

Wicky acted on behalf of the new owner who bought Hogarcito last week from a land trust represented by Brown Harris Stevens agent Carole Hogan. The seller, in turn, had acquired the house earlier in the week from J. Van Stewart, who served as trustee of a revocable trust in the name of Hogarcito’s longtime owner, the late Bruce Duval Bent. Hogan also handled the buyer’s side of that deal opposite listing broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates. About two years passed between the time the contract was signed and last week’s closing.

And now that we think about it, “multi-faceted” seems too pedestrian an adjective to describe all that activity. We’re not even sure “labyrinthine,” “byzantine” or even “convoluted” would cover it.

All things considered, it was just another week in sunny Palm Beach.

Source: Darrell Hofheinz, July 8, 2016, Palm Beach Daily News