Four properties have sold since mid-December in the security zone that closes to traffic when the president is in residence at Mar-a-Lago.
An updated 1950s-era house near President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach has changed hands for $12 million, or $2 million less than it sold for in September 2023, courthouse records show.
The five-bedroom house at 168 Kings Road is the fourth property to change hands since the middle of December in the security zone that closes to through-traffic when Trump is in residence at Mar-a-Lago.
The one-story house was sold by a Delaware-registered limited liability company named after the property’s address, according to the deed recorded Feb. 25. West Palm Beach real estate attorney Maura Ziska signed the document as “authorized signatory” of the limited liability company that sold the house. Ziska declined to discuss the transaction. Because of Delaware’s strict corporate privacy laws, no other information about the seller was available in public records.
The buyers were oil businessman Kendall Cheatham and his wife, wealth-manager and private-equity specialist Ashley Ciaburri Cheatham, the deed recorded shows.
The Palm Beach Daily News was the first media outlet to report the sale.
Built in 1959 but later renovated, the residence has 5,377 square feet of living space, inside and out, property records show. It stands on a dry lot of about two-fifths of an acre on the second street north of Mar-a-Lago. The house is the second one east of the Intracoastal Waterway.
The house’s architecture is typical of the Palm Beach Regency style with a largely symmetrical façade, a flat roof, a porch topped with a triangular pediment and classical design elements, including decorative urns at the roofline.
The interiors feature “generous ceiling heights and spacious rooms, making it an ideal space for entertaining and hosting guests,” the sales listing for the property said. “The backyard offers a private retreat centered around a large, heated saltwater pool, complete with a covered area for dining and relaxation.”
The ground-floor primary suite has two bathrooms. Other selling points included a wet bar, a wine-storage area that accommodates 1,000 bottles, a full-house generator and an air-conditioned two-car garage.
Compass Florida handled the seller’s side of the transaction, with agent Brooke Murphy co-listing the property with Kyle Blackmon. Murphy declined to comment about the sale.
The Compass agents placed the house on the market with a price of $15.25 million in January 2024. Two price reductions followed, and the last one — made in late June — dropped the price to $13.9 million, the MLS shows.
That final asking price was just under the $14 million sale price recorded when the house sold in September 2023, a few months before it was listed for resale with the higher price.
Agents Cara Conigilo McClure and Lisa Wilkinson of Douglas Elliman Real Estate represented the buyers. McClure would not discuss the transaction, and her clients couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.
Kendall Cheatham’s professional resume includes tenure as a vice president, officer and principal of Palmdale Oil Co., his family’s business, which specializes in petroleum logistics and distribution. Headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, the company has 20 locations across Florida, according to its website.
Ashley Ciaburri Cheatham is an executive at the wealth-management firm Bessemer Trust and was previously involved in the private-equity industry, according to an online biographical sketch.
The buyers have residential ties to West Palm Beach, where they own a home on Flamingo Road, property records show. They have declared that house to be their primary residence in the latest tax rolls.
The sellers in the 2023 sale of the Kings Road house were Jane B. Baird, who acted as trustee of a family trust in her name, and her husband, Girard P. Brownlow, who joined her on the deed. In that sale, the sellers were represented by agents Lisa and John Cregan of Sotheby’s International Realty. Murphy and Blackmon acted for the buyer.
Other real estate activity in the Trump security zone near Mar-a-Lago
When Trump is at Mar-a-Lago, security officers shut down South Ocean Boulevard in the neighborhood, opening the road only to property owners or their authorized representatives or workers. The security zone runs north from the club property for seven blocks, or about half a mile, to North County Road.
Because the area is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Intracoastal Waterway on the other, the roadblock effectively divides the town in two, forcing through-traffic to detour across bridges into West Palm Beach and back.
In December, a never-lived-in, five-bedroom house developed on speculation on two-fifths of an acre at 130 Algoma Road sold for a recorded $14.3 million in the Mar-a-Lago security zone. The seller in that deal was real estate investor and developer Lee Fensterstock, who built the midblock house with 7,312 square feet of living space, inside and out. The Algoma Road estate was listed by Corcoran Group agents Dana Koch and Paulette Koch and sold to a Wyoming limited liability, MAQ Holdings LLC, which was represented in the deal by Agent Elizabeth “Missy” Savage of Brown Harris Stevens.
In mid-January in the same neighborhood, private equity specialist Andrew “Andy” Unanue, whose family owns the Goya Foods empire, was linked to seller’s side of a $27.5 million deal involving a renovated eight-bedroom estate with 12,773 total square feet at 120 Clarendon Ave. The buyers on Clarendon Road were Lawrence Rolnick and Kimberly Sorrentino, a married couple who own another house in the Mar-a-Lago security zone through a limited liability company. On a lot of about three-quarters of an acre, the Clarendon Avenue house was listed by Paulette Koch and Dana Koch, with agent Margit Brandt of Premier Estate Properties acting for the buyers.
The third property to change hands recently in the area near Mar-a-Lago was a vacant lot of two-fifths of an acre at 1090 S. Ocean Blvd. on the corner of Woodbridge Road, the street immediately north of Trump’s private club. A Florida limited liability company sold that lot in early February with town-approved house plans for $19.5 million to an entity controlled by investments manager Bruce J. Richards and his wife, Avis, of New York City. Brandt handled both sides sale of 1090 S. Ocean Blvd. Under a longtime agreement with Trump for residents of Woodbridge Road, the buyers are eligible, with conditions, to receive guest privileges at The Mar-a-Lago Club without having to pay the hefty initiation fee, which is said to be as much as $1 million.
Two other houses are under contract in the Trump security zone, according to the MLS, including a house with an asking price of $15.75 million at 153 Kings Road, down the street from the one that just sold at No. 168. Elliman agents Chris Leavitt and Ashley McIntosh hold that listing.
The other under-contract house is at 142 Via Palma, which Brandt has listed at $18.95 million.
The MLS shows three other houses listed for sale in the same neighborhood, led in price by 160 Clarendon Ave., which is offered at $48.85 million by broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates. The other two properties include a house at 1048 S. Ocean Blvd. listed at $23.95 million by agent Elizabeth DeWoody of Compass Florida; and a house at 129 Woodbridge Road, listed at $14.95 million by Elliman agents Ashley McIntosh and Kendall Corso.
dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com
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. Support our journalism. Subscribe today.
