UPDATED: March 24, 12:42 p.m.: A Pennsylvania buyer with ties to a pair of family-owned investment firms nabbed a Palm Beach townhouse for $17.8 million.
Records show an entity with the same address as family office LBCW Investments and its private equity subsidiary Acrewood, both based in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, bought a five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom unit at Palazzo Villas at 221 Brazilian Avenue. The entity is managed by Stephen Chang, chief investment officer and managing director for LBCW and Acrewood, according to the companies’ websites.
The two firms are headed by Lynn Hamlin and Clay Hamlin, a co-founder and former CEO of Corporate Office Properties Trust, a publicly traded real estate investment trust focused on office assets.
Christian Angle with Christian Angle Real Estate represented the seller, and Alice D. Hodach with Keller Williams Palm Beach represented the buyer. The deal closed very near the February listing price of $17.9 million, according to Zillow. The buyer paid roughly $3,550 a square foot.
Sellers Paul Everett Gallagher and his wife, Valerie Gallagher, paid $7 million for the three-story townhouse in February 2020, so the couple sold the property at more than double their purchase price in two years.
The four-townhouse Palazzo Villas was completed in 2018.
Palm Beach is one of the hottest luxury home markets in South Florida. Alia Bint Hussein, eldest daughter of former King of Jordan Hussein bin Talal, recently sold a home along the Intracoastal Waterway for $45.4 million.
The townhome is a corner unit with an open floor plan featuring hardwood and marble flooring, high ceilings, an elevator, a two-car garage, a living room with fireplace, formal dining room, family room, and a breakfast room, according to the listing. The backyard comes with a pool and spa.
Billionaire real estate and casino tycoon Neil Bluhm also owns a unit at Palazzo Villas. In 2020, Bluhm and Paige Fleming paid $7.4 million for a four-bedroom, five-and-a-half bathroom townhome at 215 Brazilian Avenue.
The project’s construction was marked by turmoil among the partners. In 2017, the partnership came apart amid an avalanche of allegations of fraud and breach of contract.
According to a lawsuit filed in Palm Beach Circuit Court the same year, three companies managed by developers Josh McAlees and Bryan J. Mylett sued Brazilian businessman Arnaldo Cunha Campos and his companies ARCA Group International Ltd., ARCA 21 LLC and ARCA Group U.S. Holding Corp., over the ownership of Palazzo Villas.
McAlees and Mylett alleged Campos and his firms repeatedly made false promises and misrepresentations, and then restructured existing agreements with them so he wouldn’t have to pay Mylett and McAlees their share of the profits from the joint venture, the lawsuit alleged.
In 2019, the lawsuit was dismissed after McAlees, Mylett and Campos entered into a confidential settlement agreement, according to court records.