Beyond Margaritaville: Look at the homes Jimmy Buffett bought, sold in wealthy Palm Beach

Darrell Hofheinz, Palm Beach Daily News
·6 min read
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The late singer Jimmy Buffett may have left his heart in Margaritaville, but he loved the town of Palm Beach, where he owned several houses over the years, including three on the same ocean-block street.

Buffett welcomed the wealthy island’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.

The singer and songwriter died at 76 on Sept. 1 at his New York home in Sag Harbor in The Hamptons. His death was attributed to a rare form of skin cancer.

Buffett’s houses in Palm Beach over the years included an oceanfront mansion he sold for more than $18 million. He was among at least 57 billionaires with homes in town, according to the latest analysis of Forbes data by the Palm Beach Daily News.

Here’s a look at the Palm Beach homes the singer bought and sold during his nearly 30 years in town. In all, about $37.8 million changed hands in his various Palm Beach real estate deals, courthouse records show.

Jimmy Buffett called this Palm Beach mansion home for 16 years

A 2010 photo shows the historic oceanfront mansion the late Jimmy Buffett owned for years in Palm Beach at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. The singer and his wife, Jane, sold the property for a recorded $18.5 million in 2010, and a developer eventually razed the house and built himself a new mansion there.
A 2010 photo shows the historic oceanfront mansion the late Jimmy Buffett owned for years in Palm Beach at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. The singer and his wife, Jane, sold the property for a recorded $18.5 million in 2010, and a developer eventually razed the house and built himself a new mansion there.

In 1994, Buffett and his wife, Jane, paid a recorded $4.4 million for a seaside estate with a mansion built in the 1920s at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. 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 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 by Buffett, 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 for a recorded $18.5 million 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 former Buffett estate 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 old Buffett house, 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.

A 2014 rendering shows the mansion that replaced the longtime Palm Beach home of the late Jimmy Buffett and his family at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. Buffett and his wife, Jane, sold the property in 2010 and it has since been re-addressed as 101 Via Marina.
A 2014 rendering shows the mansion that replaced the longtime Palm Beach home of the late Jimmy Buffett and his family at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. Buffett and his wife, Jane, sold the property in 2010 and it has since been re-addressed as 101 Via Marina.

FROM THE 2010 ARCHIVES: Jimmy Buffett's mansion on South Ocean Boulevard sells for $18.5 million

Jimmy Buffett bought this Palm Beach house in 2002 on Root Trail near the ocean

The late singer Jimmy Buffet's first purchase on Palm Beach's Root Trail was this bungalow at No. 138, which was built between 1900 and 1915, according to a report prepared when the town granted the building landmark protection. The property was listed for sale in July 2024 at $7.25 million.
The late singer Jimmy Buffet's first purchase on Palm Beach's Root Trail was this bungalow at No. 138, which was built between 1900 and 1915, according to a report prepared when the town granted the building landmark protection. The property was listed for sale in July 2024 at $7.25 million.

In 2002, Jimmy Buffett used his real estate ownership company, Sadeca Realty LLC, to buy an ocean-block house at 138 Root Trail for $802,000.

The street, on the near North End of town, has a casual, relaxed vibe and is unusual in that it is lined with beach cottages that you might see in Key West, the town in the Florida Keys that inspired many of Buffett's songs. His music portfolio includes classics including “Margaritaville,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” and “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.”

The three-bedroom house on Root Trail dates to 1925 and has a total of 1,673 square feet, Palm Beach County property records show.

Bordered by a picket fence, the one-story house remains in the Buffett family today.

The same year Buffett bought the house, his ownership company sold three condominiums in a building at 401 Peruvian Ave. for a combined $628,000, property records show. Buffett had bought them for $555,000 via deeds recorded in 2000 and 2001.

Buffetts paid about $5 million for this ‘Zen-like’ house on the North End of Palm Beach

Doors from several rooms open onto the pool area at 309 Garden Road, depicted here as it looked in 2020 when Jimmy and Jane Buffett sold the house on the North End for a recorded $6.9 million.
Doors from several rooms open onto the pool area at 309 Garden Road, depicted here as it looked in 2020 when Jimmy and Jane Buffett sold the house on the North End for a recorded $6.9 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 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: “Mahogany-framed glass doors slide open and disappear to create an indoor/outdoor lifestyle befitting a tropical resort.”

Tall hedges hide much of the house at 309 Garden Road in Palm Beach from the view of passersday. The house is seen in a photo taken September 5, 2023.
Tall hedges hide much of the house at 309 Garden Road in Palm Beach from the view of passersday. The house is seen in a photo taken September 5, 2023.

The house’s U-shaped floorplan wrapped around the swimming pool, which was finished in deep blue and set into a patio accessed from many of the rooms.

The Buffetts owned the house for nearly nine years. They sold it in November 2020 for $6.9 million, courthouse records show.

BUFFETTS SELL PALM BEACH HOUSE IN 2020: Jimmy Buffett, wife sell house on Garden Road in Palm Beach for $6.9 million

A garden area with a water feature at 309 Garden Road is seen in a photo taken around the time Jimmy and Jane Buffett sold the Palm Beach house for $6.9 million in 2020.
A garden area with a water feature at 309 Garden Road is seen in a photo taken around the time Jimmy and Jane Buffett sold the Palm Beach house for $6.9 million in 2020.

Apartment-conversion project on Root Trail was Jimmy Buffett's personal Palm Beach retreat

Formerly two apartment buildings, 135A and 135B were converted into single-family homes and bought by the late Jimmy Buffett's real estate ownership company in 2013,
Formerly two apartment buildings, 135A and 135B were converted into single-family homes and bought by the late Jimmy Buffett's real estate ownership company in 2013,

Back on Root Trail, Buffett’s ownership company bought two freshly renovated side-by-side 1926 houses — at Nos. 125A and 125B — for a combined $2.25 million in May 2013.

With Key West-style architecture, the development was said to have been used as a personal retreat-and-studio by the singer.

Originally a pair of apartment houses, the buildings were converted into single-family homes by two developers and real estate professionals, John C. Ceretta and Steve Allen. The project kept the original footprints of the buildings intact. Building codes required that the original clay-block walls be preserved but strengthened as a condition for redevelopment.

Buffett, who already owned a house on Root Trail, was no doubt familiar with the project while it was in development.

“It was a very quick sale. I think the buyer had his eye on it a while,” Cerreta told the Palm Beach Daily News at the time.

But he added that a confidentiality agreement prevented him from identifying the buyer or providing specifics.

That’s not unusual for sellers in privacy-prized Palm Beach — especially when the buyer is a celebrity.

The Buffett family still owns the development.

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This story was updated from a previous version.

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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. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Jimmy Buffett's Florida mansion, other of many homes he owned