Tuesday, November 19, 2024

TV celebrity Bob Vila, wife sell Palm Beach house for $13.4M; they own another in town


Bob Vila, who renovated hundreds of homes as the star of TV's "This Old House," has just sold a 1940s-era house he refreshed in Midtown Palm Beach. The landmarked house at 345 Pendleton Ave. changed hands for $13.375 million, the price recorded Nov. 19 with the deed.

Vila and his wife, Diana Barrett, had owned the house since December 2023, when they bought it for a recorded $12.5 million. The traditional-style house has since undergone a modest renovation, inside and out, according to building records.

The Vilas sold the house to Delphine Krakoff, the deed shows. She is an interior designer who is married to fashion designer Reed Krakoff, a former creative director and president of Coach Inc., who today is creative chairman of jewelry brand John Hardy. He also founded an eponymous line of women's ready-to-wear and accessories.

The Krakoffs are former Palm Beach residents, property records show.

In a deal recorded at $13.375 million, "This Old House" star Bob Vila and his wife, Diana Barrett, have sold this traditional-style house they renovated at 345 Pendleton Lane in Midtown Palm Beach.

Vila and Barrett, meanwhile, have their longtime lakefront home across town on Everglades Island listed for sale at $39.9 million, as previously reported by the Palm Beach Daily News.

Vila, a former chairman of the Palm Beach Architectural Commission, starred in the home-improvement shows "This Old House" and "Restore America with Bob Vila." He also has his own website, BobVila.com. His wife's professional resume includes teaching public health at Harvard University.

The Villas, who were traveling Nov. 19, could not be reached for comment.

Diana Barrett and husband Bob Vila have just sold a house at 345 Pendleton Lane in Palm Beach for a recorded $13.375 million. The also have a longtime Palm Beach home at 690 Everglades Island, which is listed for sale at just under $40 million.

With Georgian Revival-style architecture, the house that just sold has five bedrooms and 5,340 square feet of living space, inside and out. It was built in 1940 to a design by the late John L. Volk, a prolific Palm Beach architect. Volk drew up the plans for all of the original houses on Pendleton Lane, a private street that runs between the Intracoastal Waterway and Cocoanut Row.

The sale listing noted the "beautiful architectural detailing throughout" the house, which was described "elegant and historic."

The house has many of the architectural signatures of Volk houses of its era, including a gracefully curved staircase, generously proportioned rooms and French doors. In the rear, a covered patio overlooks the swimming pool, which is set into an informal landscape.

Pendleton Lane, a cul-de-sac lined with vintage houses, is several streets north of Royal Palm Way. It is among a handful of private streets in town and is owned by the homeowners, who also maintain it.

"This Old House" start Bob Vila and his wife, Diana Barrett, just sold, for $13.375 million, this Palm Beach house built in the 1940s at 345 Pendleton Lane. The couple bought the house for $12.5 million in late 2023 and embarked on a renovation.

The house that just sold at No. 345 stands on a quarter-acre lot on the north side of Pendleton Lane's terminus, one house east of the waterway.

Town officials granted the house landmark protection in 2022. The designation means that the exterior can't be significantly altered without the approval of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle real estate handled the sellers' side of the recent sale, according to the multiple listing service. He listed the house for sale at the tail end of May for $15.9 million.

Agents Paulette Koch and Dana Koch of the Corcoran Group represented the buyer's end of the transaction.

Angle and Dana Koch declined to comment about the sale.

Fashion designer Reed Krakoff and his interior designer wife, Delphine, posed several years ago at a fundraiser for the Center for Family Services when they lived in Palm Beach.

The recent renovation included the installation of a new kitchen, upgrades to the air-conditioning and electrical systems, a new roof and other improvements. The project was overseen by Tim Givens Building & Remodeling, records show.

Vila and Barett bought the house from longtime Palm Beach interior designer Leta Austin Foster and her real-estate agent husband, Ridgely, who had owned it for nearly 50 years. The Fosters had paid $180,000 in 1975, property records show.

The house was built by Arnold Construction Co. for jeweler Milton A. Ellen Fuller and his wife, Ellen, according to a report prepared for the landmarks board as part of the landmarking process.  Milton Fuller had an eponymous shop on Worth Avenue.

In 1965, the house was sold Richard Collier, "grandson of the pioneer south Florida developer Barron G. Collier, who accumulated and later developed over a million acres of southwest Florida land and was the namesake of Collier County," the landmarking report says.

After 10 years of ownership, Collier sold the house to the Fosters.

In the 2023 sale of the house, agent agent Jeff Cloninger of Sotheby's International Realty was the listing agent and negotiated opposite PB Realty Advisors agent Chris Vila, who represented his parents.

On Everglades Island, Angle holds the listing for Vila and Barrett's longtime home at 690 Island Drive. That seven-bedroom house was built in 1949 but remodeled and expanded by Vila and Barrett. The Island Drive house has about 7,621 square feet of living space, inside and out. On the east side of Everglades Island, the house stands on a lot measuring four-fifths of an acre with about 175 feet of frontage on the Intracoastal Waterway.

A red-brick guesthouse addition can be seen at the right of the Palm Beach estate of "This Old House" star Bob Vila and his wife, Diana Barrett, at 690 Island Drive on Everglades Island. With 175 feet of frontage on the Intracoastal Waterway, the property is listed at $39.9 million.

The sunroom at "This Old House" star Bob Vila's house at 690 Island Drive in Palm Beach looks out to the pool and about 175 feet of frontage on the Intracoastal Waterway. Vila shares the house, which is listed for $39.9 million, with his wife, Diana Barrett, whose late parents were the previous owners.

In 2015, the Krakoffs parted with a five-bedroom, Modernist-style house at 1480 N. Ocean Blvd., according to a deed recorded with a price of $6.95 million. The buyer of that house, which was in Reed Krakoff's name, was estate investor Jason Kalisman, grandson of the late real estate mogul Alfred Taubman. Paulette Koch and Dana Koch handled the seller's side of the deal on North Ocean Boulevard, with agent Todd F. Peter of Sotheby's International Realty representing Kalisman's interests.

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Portions of this story appeared previously in the Palm Beach Daily News.

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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 dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com, call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: TV celebrity handyman Bob Vila, wife sell Palm Beach house for $13.4M

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