Did Billy Joel’s company pay $9 million for a Florida townhouse?
Pop singer Billy Joel may know a thing or two about uptown girls, but he likely has some insight into Midtown Palm Beach as well. That’s where the “Piano Man” singer appears to have quietly paid a recorded $9.05 million for a townhouse, according to courthouse records and sources familiar with the transaction.
Joel — who just listed his ocean-to-lake estate in Manalapan near Palm Beach for $64.9 million — bought the three-story townhouse through an ownership company about a year ago, property records indicate. In a triplex, the townhouse is near the Brazilian Court hotel and a few blocks north of Worth Avenue.
The townhouse sale closed in mid-December 2021 during the Palm Beach real estate frenzy sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, which shrank the island’s available housing inventory as buyers scooped up homes.
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The Palm Beach Daily News is the first media outlet to report Joel’s likely link to the townhouse deal and a broke the news of the listing in Manalapan.
Other recording artists with homes in Palm Beach include “Margaritaville” singer Jimmy Buffett and rockers Jon Bon Jovi and Rod Stewart.
The real estate broker who represented the buyer’s side of the townhouse sale couldn’t be reached, and the agents involved on the seller’s end declined to comment.
Joel also couldn’t be reached and one of his representatives has consistently declined to discuss any real estate deals involving the six-time Grammy winner, who is married to Alexis Roderick Joel.
The couple also reportedly has a sizable estate in Wellington, the equestrian community in western Palm Beach County. It’s not uncommon for people who spend time in landlocked Wellington to also have a home near the ocean in Palm Beach, real estate observers say.
Joel appears to have an affinity for homes with Italian-style architecture. The previous sales listing for the Palm Beach townhouse — with four bedrooms and 4,956 square feet of living space, inside and out — was described as a “meticulously maintained Italian-inspired villa.”
That description echoes the architecture of Joel’s ocean-to-lake estate in Manalapan, where the architecture appears to have been inspired by an Italian palazzo.
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When it sold, the townhouse at 331 Australian Ave. had an open floor plan on the ground floor with a living area, a formal dining room and a well-equipped kitchen and a built-in breakfast nook accessing what the listing described as an “outdoor living room.” The backyard has its own pool and lounge area, and there’s also a two-car garage.
“Do not miss this opportunity to be walking distance to Worth Avenue, the beach, and a short drive to Palm Beach International Airport,” the sales listing said.
The townhouse was built in 2002 by contractor Paul Wittmann of Wittmann Building Corp. The exterior features a brick motor court, a barrel-tile roof and hanging balconies. Each of the three townhomes is considered an independent residence, so the owners do not pay any fees to a homeowner’s association.
The townhouse was listed for sale in October 2021 by Douglas Elliman Real Estate agents Chris Leavitt and Alison Newton, who represented the land trust that had owned it since February 2020, property records show.
Broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real estate handled the buyer’s side in last year’s sale, the multiple listing shows.
Angle also has the listing for Joel’s Manalapan estate at 1110 S. Ocean Blvd. Built in 2010, that estate comprises 1.6 acres with about 150 feet of frontage on the Atlantic Ocean and, to the west, on the Intracoastal Waterway.
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In all, the Manalapan estate has eight bedrooms and about 20,838 square feet of living space, inside and out. The property includes a two-bedroom guest house and additional space for household staff.
The ownership companies for the Wellington, Palm Beach and Manalapan properties are linked in property and business records to GSB Corporate Services and attorney Francisco J. Gonzalez of Wellington. Gonzalez could not be reached for comment.
The buyer in last year’s Palm Beach sale is listed in property records as a limited liability company named Dellrem LLC.
Joel has bought and sold other properties in South Florida. In January 2020, one of his ownership companies sold — at a price recorded at about $10.3 million — an eight-bedroom house with about 13,200 total square feet on an ocean-to-lake property at 1920 S. Ocean Blvd. Joel had extensively renovated that house, which was built in 2004, but he never lived in it, according to sources familiar with the sale.
In April 2018, an ownership company controlled by the singer sold an ocean-to-lake vacant lot of about 2 acres at 1940 S. Ocean Blvd., immediately south of the house that sold in 2020. The sale price for that lot was recorded at $7.5 million.
Joel has owned other properties in South Florida. Among his real estate transactions in Miami-Dade County, he sold — for $13.75 million in 2013 — an 8,800-square-foot house on La Gorce Island in Miami Beach, according to published reports.
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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 [email protected], call (561) 820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
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