(This story was updated to accurately reflect the most current information.)
In a $27.5 million deal, another estate has sold in the security zone that closes to through traffic when President-elect Donald Trump is in residence at his Mar-a-Lago Club. The price was recorded Jan. 14 with the deed.
On the seller’s side of the estate at 120 Clarendon Ave. was private equity specialist Andrew “Andy” Unanue, whose family owns the Goya Foods empire, property records indicate. Unanue in 2022 entered into a lease of 99 years plus one day for the estate — a strategy often used by property owners for tax purposes — after a Florida limited liability company named 120 Clarendon Avenue LLC bought the property for a recorded $22.713 million in 2021. That company is listed as the estate’s seller on the just-recorded deed.
The buyers were Lawrence Rolnick and Kimberly Sorrentino, a married couple who own another house in the Mar-a-Lago security zone through Rolnick Family Real Estate LLC, a company they control, property records show. That house, at 160 Woodbridge Road, stands on the street that runs immediately north of Mar-a-Lago and backs up to the club’s property near the Intracoastal Waterway.
The estate the Rolnicks just bought on Clarendon Avenue stands on a lot of about three-quarters of an acre. The six-bedroom main residence and its two-bedroom guesthouse have a combined 12,773 square feet of living space, inside and out, according to the property’s sales listing.
Rolnick and Sorrentino have owned their Woodbridge Road house since 2015, when they paid $8.9 million for it, according to property records. Residents of Woodbridge Road are eligible to receive a free membership to The Mar-a-Lago Club — today said to be worth at least $1 million — under a longstanding agreement between town officials and Trump. Rolnick and Sorrentino’s home on Woodbridge Road is not listed for sale, according to the multiple listing service.
Unanue, meanwhile, is linked in property records to the ownership of another Palm Beach estate at 854 S. County Road. Courthouse documents show that in December 2023, he entered into the same type of long-term lease agreement for that property, which had changed hands for nearly $63.5 million in May of the same year. The buyer in that deal was 854 So. County Rd LLC.
The estate on South County Road just underwent a major renovation, construction records show.
On Clarendon Avenue
The Mediterranean-style residence just sold on Clarendon Avenue occupies the third lot west of the beach on the street, immediately south of the curve where North County Road joins South Ocean Boulevard. With an unusually high elevation, the property was sold with deeded beach access.
Listing agents Dana Koch and Paulette Koch of the Corcoran Group represented the seller’s interests in the Clarendon Avenue sale. They also handled the buyer’s side when the house sold in 2021.
Dana Koch declined to comment about either sale. Unanue could not be immediately reached for comment.
Built in 2001, the house on Clarendon Avenue was substantially updated by Debra White Dove Graciano and her businessman husband, Richard A. Graciano Jr., who were the sellers when the property changed hands in 2021.
The estate had been on the market for more than year before the most recent sale, which closed Jan. 10, the MLS shows. The property was initially priced in November 2023 at $36.5 million but was last offered at $27.9 million after two price reductions.
Agent Margit Brandt of Premier Estate Properties acted for the buyers on Clarendon Avenue, according to the MLS. She also declined to discuss the sale. Her clients couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Rolnick and Sorrentino have ties to New Jersey, where Sorrentino is CEO of Pentaurus Properties, a family real estate investment and management company in Mountainside. The company is listed on the Clarendon Avenue deed as the mailing address of Sorrentino and her husband.
The Clarendon Avenue estate was originally planned as a speculation project by Euro Homes, but developer/builder Zack Ciomek ended up customizing it for the couple who sold it to the Gracianos — Jane and William H. Told Jr.
With a double staircase leading up the front doors, the main house features an expansive motor court flanked by two-car garages on either side.
At the rear of the property are formal gardens and a long swimming pool, which separates the main house from the guest house
The main house’s floorplan is “perfect for entertaining,” according to the Corcoran sales listing, with the formal living room opening to a poolside loggia. The well-equipped kitchen is off the family room, which also accesses the loggia.
Other rooms include a gym and a wood-paneled library. The master suite has two bathrooms, custom cabinetry, walk-in closets, detailed ceilings and a balcony overlooking the pool.
Unanue is a former chief operating officer of Goya Foods, although he left the company in 2004. Headquartered in Secaucus, New Jersey, and run by other members of the Unanue family, Goya is the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States, according to its website.
Unanue today is managing partner of AUA Private Equity Partners. That West Palm Beach-based company is related to AUA Capital Management, a Pennsylvania-based family office and investment firm that traces its roots to the Unanue Family Office. The latter was founded by Unanue and his father, the late Joseph Unanue, Goya’s longtime chairman and CEO, its website says.
Agent Manuela Yanez of William Raveis South Florida negotiated for the Gracianos in the 2021 sale.
On South County Road
The estate linked in the latest property records to Unanue at 854 S. County Road was sold for a recorded $63.43 million in May 2023 by an investment group led by Palm Beach and Miami Beach developer Todd Michael Glaser. With about 2 acres, that estate has 220 feet of frontage on the Intracoastal Waterway and lies less than a half-mile north of the property on Clarendon Avenue.
With nine bedrooms, the South County Road estate features a 1936 house designed by a noted Palm Beach architect, the late Howard Major. Courthouse records show the house and its garage-and-guesthouse building had 13,415 square feet of living space, inside and out when the property changed hands.
The Corcoran Group handled both sides of the 2023 sale on South County Road, with Dana Koch and Paulette Koch representing the buyer’s side and agent Suzanne Frisbie acting for Glaser and his investor. All of the agents involved have consistently declined to identify anyone connected with the sale on South County Road.
In 2020, a company controlled by Unanue paid a recorded $11.35 million for another Estate Section home at 211 El Brillo Way, property records show. His company flipped that house about six months later for $17.75 million during the escalation of the Palm Beach real estate boom related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Real estate action in the Mar-a-Lago security zone
Interest in Palm Beach real estate has boomed since the Nov. 5 election, in which Trump won a second term. His inauguration in Washington, D.C., is set for Monday.
The security zone around Mar-a-Lago recently has seen some real estate action, in addition to the sale of the estate on Clarendon Avenue. The zone runs north from the club property for seven blocks, or about half a mile, to North County Road.
In late December, a never-lived-in, five-bedroom house developed on speculation on two-fifths of an acre at 130 Algoma Road sold for a recorded $14.3 million. The seller, real estate investor and developer Lee Fensterstock, completed the midblock house, which has 7,312 square feet of living space, inside and out. The estate was listed by Dana Koch and Paulette Koch and sold to a Wyoming limited liability, MAQ Holdings LLC, which was represented in the deal by Agent Elizabeth “Missy” Savage of Brown Harris Stevens.
Six other houses are for sale in the Trump security zone, according to the active listings category of the MLS. At the top of the for-sale list, pricewise, is a residence at 160 Clarendon Ave., listed at $48.85 million by broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates.
The next most expensive listing is 1090 S. Ocean Blvd., an in-construction house offered by Brandt at $45 million. The latter is on the corner of Woodbridge Road.
The other properties for sale in the neighborhood include a house at 1048 S. Ocean Blvd., listed at $23.95 million by agent Elizabeth DeWoody of Compass Florida; a residence at 142 Via Palma, listed by Brandt at $18.95 million; a house at 129 Woodbridge Road, listed at $14.95 million by Douglas Elliman Real Estate agents Ashley McIntosh and Kendall Corso; and a residence at 168 Kings Road, offered at $13.9 million through agent Brooke A. Murphy of Compass Florida.
Another home in the security zone, at 153 Kings Road, is under contract, the MLS shows, after being listed at $15.75 million by Elliman agents Chris Leavitt and McIntosh.
When Trump is at Mar-a-Lago, security officers shut down South Ocean Boulevard in the neighborhood, opening the road only to property owners or their authorized representatives or workers. Because the area is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Intracoastal Waterway on the other, the roadblock effectively divides the town in two, forcing through traffic to detour across bridges into West Palm Beach and back.
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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 [email protected], call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
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