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Palm Beach Daily News

Ridgeview Drive house with basement sells to Connecticut couple for $10.35M

By: Darrell Hofheinz
Published: 2/16/2012Source: Palm Beach Daily News

David Lambert has sold the expansive house that he built for himself and his family a decade ago on one of Palm Beach’s highest points: 320 Ridgeview Drive. Thomas and Diane Smith of Greenwich, Conn., who are new to Palm Beach, paid $10.35 million for the Georgian-style house, with its unusual and extensive basement.

The price was listed on the warranty deed recorded Tuesday by the Palm Beach County Clerk’s office.

The North End sale marks the largest residential transaction closed in Palm Beach since the end of September, when 456 Worth Ave., a historic home restored by the late philanthropist Cathleen McFarlane Ross, changed hands for a recorded $15.17 million, nine months after the sales contract was signed.

The five-bedroom house on Ridgeview, with 13,479 square feet of living space, inside and out, was listed for sale in September at $14.25 million by agent Jim McCann of the Corcoran Group. Agent Carole Hogan of Brown Harris Stevens represented the Smiths.

Thomas Smith is the founding partner and president of Greenwich-based Prescott Investors, a private investment firm he founded in 1973.

Lambert also is an investor.

The Smiths were smitten with the house from the moment they stepped inside, Hogan said. They also were delighted by its proximity to the bike trail and by the island itself.

“They made two trips here (to look at properties). They came just before Thanksgiving and came back down in January. They had never been to Palm Beach before,” Hogan said.

Thomas Smith, who has an interest in architecture, appreciated architect Thomas Kirchhoff’s layout, as well as the home’s interior and exterior proportions and detailing, Hogan said.

In a lake block near the Palm Beach Country Club, the house stands at the intersection of Hi-Mount Road, a bit south of the island’s famous “coral cut” on North Lake Way. Its main-level rooms rise from an elevation of 22 feet, allowing for a full basement below, unusual in a Palm Beach house of this size, according to McCann.

The lower level houses a brick-walled, 5,000-bottle wine cellar and tasting room where Lambert hosted a number of events over the years to benefit charities. The basement also contains an oversized laundry room, a billiards room and a home theater.

Other features of the house include a poolside covered loggia with a broad sundeck above it; a family room open to the kitchen; an elliptical staircase; a paneled library; and plentiful windows and French doors to bring in natural light.

The listing price had been determined by comparable sales of newer homes in the area, McCann said. Among those was last August’s sale of a seven-?bedroom house built in 2008 at 254 Tangier Ave., about eight streets south of the Ridgeview property. It sold for a recorded $12.475 million.

Lambert, incidentally, had developed the Tangier home on “spec” without a specific buyer in mind, and Kirchhoff designed its Georgian-style architecture. It was the third of three houses he developed and sold on the open market.

Although the Ridgeview property sold for less than its asking price, Lambert said he didn’t hesitate in accepting the deal.

“I was delighted with the price. The negotiations were quick and very friendly,” Lambert said, adding that he was pleased to have found buyers who so appreciated the effort he had put into the house.

The Smiths lend their support to programs at several nonprofit organizations, including fellowships at CUNY, the City University of New York.

Thomas Smith also serves on the board of trustees of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a New York City-based think tank. The couple funds the latter’s $50,000 Hayek Prize, which “honors the book published within the past two years that best reflects (Friedrich) Hayek’s vision of economic and individual liberty,” according to the organization’s website.

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