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Billionaire and executive chairman of Estée Lauder Companies William Lauder has bought Rush Limbaugh’s longtime Palm Beach estate for a record $155 million, The Wall Street Journal reported, making it the priciest deal to close in the wealthy Florida enclave.
Limbaugh, the conservative talk-radio icon who died in 2021, purchased the 2.7-acre waterfront property for $3.9 million in 1998, according to records. The estate, located on the swanky North Ocean Boulevard, features multiple houses, 250 feet of ocean frontage and direct access to the beach.
Other property sales in the area that have come close in price include hedge funder Ken Griffin’s purchase of four parcels for $129.6 million in 2013 and private-equity exec Scott Shleifer’s purchase of an oceanfront property for $122.7 million in 2021. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison also purchased a $173 million home in neighboring Manalapan in 2022.
Lauder recently listed two parcels in Palm Beach with about 360 feet of ocean frontage for a combined price of $200 million. One parcel was purchased for about $25.4 million in 2020 and the other for an undisclosed price in 2021. The houses that had been on each of the lots were demolished.
Lauder also listed a property on New York’s Park Avenue for $45 million in 2019 but subsequently took it off the market.
Limbaugh’s estate was put on the market in 2022 by a trust linked to the late talk show host’s widow, Kathryn Adams Limbaugh, with an ask between $150 to $175 million, according to The WSJ’s sources.
Limbaugh largely decorated the estate’s 24,000-square-foot main house himself, according to the Limbaugh biography An Army of One by Zev Chafets. The West Indies-style home includes a salon modeled on Versailles and a dining room chandelier that’s a replica of the one in New York’s Plaza Hotel.
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