Mar-a-Lago security zone sees yet another home sale, this one at $14M

The custom home had been on and off the market since 2021.

The house at 153 Kings Road was built in 2009 as a custom home by the sellers, Michael and Lori Bernstein.
The propery measures a little more than quarter of an acre on the second street north of Mar-a-Lago. The area closes to through traffic when Trump is in residence at his private club.
The house carried an asking price at $15.75 million when it sold.

The residential neighborhood immediately north of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club has become a real estate hotspot, notching its fifth sale since the middle of December, a newly recorded deed shows.

The latest sale was recorded March 18 at $14 million for a five-bedroom house at 153 Kings Road in Palm Beach, Florida, which had been on and off the market since 2021, listed by several different agencies, according to the multiple listing service. The house has 6,789 square feet of living space, inside and out.

A Delaware-registered limited liability company named after the property’s address was the buyer. That company has an address in Westport, Connecticut, linked to businessman David L. Ryan and his wife, Kathleen, according to public records. David Ryan’s professional resume includes tenure as CEO of Connecticut-based D.L. Ryan Cos., which is identified in business records as an advertising and marketing firm.

Because of Delaware’s strict corporate privacy laws, no other information about the buyer was immediately available in public records.

The sellers were Palm Beach businesswoman and retailer Lori Bernstein and her husband Michael Bernstein, CEO of MEB Finance Solutions Inc. and the managing director at Seaport Specialty Lending LLC.

The Bernsteins built the house in 2009 to replace a residence that had been severely damaged in a storm shortly after the couple bought the property in 2004 for $2.575 million.

The house stands on a lot of a little more than quarter of an acre on the second street north of Mar-a-Lago. The area closes to through traffic when Trump is in residence at his private club.

Meanwhile, two other houses in the security zone are under contract with the buyers waiting to close their sales, according to the MLS.

The five-bedroom house that just sold has modified Georgian Colonial-style architecture and a symmetrical layout. It was designed by architect Thomas Kirchhoff as a two-story residence with 6,789 square feet of living space, inside and out.

The layout includes a double-height stair hall, an elevator, a formal living room, a library, a well-equipped kitchen and a breakfast room. The family room opens to an enclosed loggia, which has a wet bar and overlooks the pool patio.

On the second floor, the primary bedroom suite has two bathrooms, walk-in closets and a sitting room.

Douglas Elliman Real Estate agents Chris Leavitt and Ashley McIntosh represented the sellers. The agents acquired the listing on Sept. 20 and set a price of $15.75 million, the MLS shows. They had it under contract about four months later.

Agent Margit Brandt of Premier Estate Properties acted on behalf of the buyer.

Lori Bernstein runs Lori Jayne Monogramming and More in Palm Beach, specializing in monogramming, home goods, stationery and apparel.

Leavitt told the Palm Beach Daily News he was “very happy” to have sold the house for the owner of “the best linen and gift shop in Palm Beach.”

He declined further comment.

The house was built by the late contractor John Mitchell, and the Bernsteins worked with London-based Colefax and Fowler on the interiors. There are marble, limestone and wood floors throughout, although the bedrooms are carpeted.

The house “has a very traditional Palm Beach feeling, and lends itself to formal entertaining, with a great chef’s kitchen. It’s a great family home,” Lori Bernstein told the Palm Beach Daily News for a 2022 article about the house, when it was listed by a different agency.

When the house entered the market in market in July 2021 at the height of the coronavirus-sparked real estate boom, it carried a priced of $21.9 million. The price underwent a number of reductions before Douglas Elliman acquired the listing last fall.

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.

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.

The two neighborhood houses with listings in the “pending” category of the MLS include a four-bedroom house with 7,633 total square feet, listed by Brandt at $18.95 million

The other house with a contract pending is priced at $14.95 million through a listing held by McIntosh and her Douglas Elliman colleague Kendall Corso. That six-bedroom property will be sold with a perk available to all homeowners on the street. The buyers would have the option to get guest privileges at The Mar-a-Lago Club without paying the club’s initiation fee — said to be as much as $1 million — because of an agreement Trump worked out years ago with the town. Under that agreement, the homebuyer would be required to complete an interview process with club officials and pay annual dues.

The just-closed sale of the former Bernstein house was the second transaction to close on Kings Road within about two weeks. Via a deed recorded Feb. 26, an updated 1950s-era house at 168 Kings Road changed hands for a recorded $12 million, sold by a Delaware-registered limited liability company named after the property’s address. The buyers in that deal were oil businessman Kendall Cheatham and his wife, wealth-manager and private-equity specialist Ashley Ciaburri Cheatham. The five-bedroom house at 168 Kings Road has 5,377 total square feet on a dry lot of about two-fifths of an acre. On the seller’s side were Compass Florida agents Brooke Murphy and Kyle Blackmon, who negotiated opposite Douglas Elliman agents Cara Conigilo McClure and Lisa Wilkinson.

Three other houses have sold in the Trump security zone in the past three months.

In December, a never-lived-in, five-bedroom house developed on speculation on two-fifths of an acre changed hands for a recorded $14.3 million. 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 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. The buyers 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 house was listed by Paulette Koch and Dana Koch, with agent Margit Brandt of Premier Estate Properties acting for the buyers.

The other property to change hands recently in the area near Mar-a-Lago was a vacant lot of two-fifths of an acre. 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 of the sale.

Two other houses are “active” for-sale listings in the same neighborhood. One estate is offered at $48.85 million by broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates, while another house is listed at $23.95 million by agent Elizabeth DeWoody of Compass Florida.

One other house sold recently near Mar-a-Lago but it is south of the club and not in the Trump security zone. That extensively renovated house changed hands in a deal recorded March 4 at $40 million. Julie Chrystyn Oppermann acted as trustee of the trust that bought that five-bedroom house — with 11,038 total square feet — from a company linked in property records to investments specialist David Herro and preservationist Jay Franke. Leavitt was the listing agent, while Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate acted for the buyer.

This story was updated to add new information.