Palm Beach Town Council Approves Plans for Home
Drew and Jessica Guff; 144 Chilean Ave (Getty, Siguler Guff, Fairfax & Sammons)
The Palm Beach Town Council approved plans for a new, two-story home on a non-waterfront site owned by private equity chief Drew Guff and his wife, television producer Jessica Guff.
The council voted unanimously for the proposed house at 144 Chilean Avenue during its development review meeting on Wednesday. Council members called the designs for the three-bedroom, 5,100-square-foot home “exceptional” and a case study for how the island’s zoning code impedes good design.
Fairfax & Sammons, an architecture firm based in New York and Palm Beach, designed the house to include a courtyard with a pool, and a loggia over the entrance, the application shows. The Guffs won variances for exceeding maximum lot coverage, deficient landscaped open space and exceeding the maximum cubic content ratio.
“This is one of the better proposed new residences I’ve seen in the town of Palm Beach in a long time,” said councilman Ted Cooney. “A courtyard home is what we should be building in our climate, and unfortunately our zoning code makes those very challenging to do.”
In the current zoning code, loggias count toward cubic content ratio, despite being an open-air feature of a home. The council is currently in a review process for its zoning code.
Records show the Guffs purchased the property for $8.5 million in April, via a trust named for the address. The former house on the 0.2-acre lot was built in 1955, according to Redfin, and has since been torn down, according to property records.
Drew Guff is a managing partner at the New York-based private equity firm Siguler Guff, and Jessica Guff is a television producer with multiple Daytime Emmys to her name.
Prices for non-waterfront lots and teardowns in Palm Beach have skyrocketed in recent years, spurred by pandemic migration to South Florida. Luxury buyers prefer new construction, brokers say, making lots and teardowns a hot commodity. Spec homes are even more in-demand.
A Boston-based real estate CEO sold a non-waterfront Palm Beach lot on the island for $10.3 million in November. In October, Torburn Partners CEO Michael Burns closed on a non-waterfront teardown for $12 million, and immediately relisted it for $18.5 million.
This month, a non-waterfront spec mansion sold for $32 million, after the developer bought the land for $12 million last year.
