Howard Gittis' Palm Beach home under contract

The late Howard Gittis, who shaped many an acquisition in his years as vice chairman of Revlon parent MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, would no doubt be pleased at the deal his estate has consummated on the sale of 200 Via Palma.

 

The contract price has not been disclosed but is said to be about $22 million, not much below the listing price of $23.5 million. More impressive is its short stay on the market - less than six weeks.

 

Designed in 1952 by Marion Sims Wyeth, the home was listed about Dec. 1 with Paulette Koch and Dana Koch of The Corcoran Group. Gittis' estate put it on the market less than three months after his sudden death at his home in New York. He had returned that day after a weekend of shopping for other real estate in Palm Beach.

 

Betsy Green, a New York broker with a desk in Palm Beach, represented the buyer, who is said to be Manhattan property baron Lloyd Goldman, one of the largest real estate owners in New York.

 

Goldman led a group that put up most of the $125 million equity to back developer Larry Silverstein's purchase of the 99-year lease on the World Trade Center from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. That $3.2 billion deal closed in July 2001, weeks before the buildings fell on Sept. 11.

 

In the short time that 200 Via Palma was on the market, it all but created a bidding war, Paulette Koch said. "More than one prospect was seriously interested in buying. There will be a lot of crying now that they didn't step up to the plate."

 

She said the quick sale resulted from proper pricing. "A lot of thought and time went into deliberations with the family."

 

Records at the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's Office show Gittis bought the waterfront compound in 2001 for $9.95 million.

 

Koch said that during the six weeks, she and her son, Dana, showed it almost daily - sometimes twice a day. "It got quite a reception, because people perceived the value."

 

The house was sold unfurnished. She said Gittis' extensive art collection is worth much more than the house.

 

That "stellar contemporary art collection" was the focus of a recent feature on the irreverent "Real Estalker" blog.

 

The blogger cited works by Damien Hirst (over the fireplace in the dining room), Peter Halley (living room), Gary Hume (back wall, loggia), Willem de Kooning (over the fireplace of the master bedroom), some Warhols, a Picasso and a few Fernando Boteros.

 

"Jeezis Mary and Joseph, a tour through this house is like going to the damn Museum of Modern Art. Your Mama imagines all the bigwigs from the Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses are beating down the door to the executor to Mister Gittis' estate trying to get their hands on all that art," wrote the blogger, who goes by the sobriquet of Your Mama.

 

Gittis, whose roles were not limited to corporate attorney and executive, was chairman of the board of trustees at Temple University in Philadelphia.

 

In August 2000, he set a county record for nonoceanfront property when he sold his landmarked mansion on Via Del Mar for $18 million - $1 million more than he asked.

 

The next assignment for his estate: selling Gittis' sprawling summer compound on Ox Pasture Road in Southampton, N.Y. Priced at $59 million, the main house sits on more than 15 acres.