Top Attorney Buys Bristol Condo in West Palm Beach for $20M

UPDATED, May 25, 5:45 p.m.:

A top intellectual property lawyer bought a Bristol condo for $19.8 million, marking a price-per-square-foot record at the West Palm Beach tower.

Records show Alfred and Gail Engelberg bought unit 2003 at 1100 South Flagler Drive from the Edgewater Financial Trust, with Teresa Mason signing as trustee. The trust shares a mailing address with the family foundation of telecom titan Craig McCaw, records show. 

Alfred Engelberg was an intellectual property lawyer at New York City-based Amster Rothstein & Engelberg from 1969 to 1985, and served as counsel to the Generic Pharmaceutical Association from 1981 to 1994. He is the namesake for New York University’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy. According to the center’s website, Engelberg played a significant role in the Hatch-Waxman Act, a 1984 law that is the basis for today’s generic drug industry. 

He and his wife, Gail Engelberg, together sit on the board of trustees of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Last year, the couple donated $15 million to the museum to benefit arts education and name the Gail May Engelberg Center for Arts Education, the Palm Beach Daily News reported. She is also vice chairwoman for Jazz at Lincoln Center. 

They also own a waterfront home at 1050 North Lake Way in Palm Beach that they bought for $3.9 million in 1995, records show.

McCaw is the founder of McCaw Cellular, which he sold to AT&T for $12.6 billion in 1994, according to Forbes. He went on to found Clearwire, another cellular company, which merged with T-Mobile (then Sprint) in 2008. 

The entity linked to McCaw’s foundation bought the Bristol unit in 2020 for $16 million, just after he split from his second wife, Susan Risinski McCaw. The 5,100-square-foot, three-bedroom unit includes five bathrooms and one half-bathroom, records show. 

It has been listed on and off since 2020, most recently asking $21.9 million in April of last year, Realtor.com shows. Samantha Curry with Douglas Elliman brokered both sides of the off-market deal. She declined to comment. 

The latest sale price equates to $3,870 per square foot, a price-per-square-foot record for the tower. 

The 25-story, 69-unit Bristol was completed in 2019. Amenities include a dog park, salon, two spas, a gym, a pool, and a lounge.

When developers Al Adelson and Gene Golub completed the tower, it was West Palm Beach’s first new condominium in a decade. It has since attracted a number of high-profile buyers.

Clifford & Company CEO Cliff Fischer sold his unit for $11.2 million in March. Financier Robert Garvy sold his condo for $21 million in February. Wanxiang America Real Estate, a division of Chinese conglomerate Wanxiang Group, sold a unit in the building for $12 million in December. The sale equated to $3,364 per square foot, the previous price-per-square-foot record for the tower.