By Thom Smith
During the next 10 months, Billy Joel will play nine dates at Madison Square Garden. In between, he’ll barnstorm the nation, 10 shows mostly in stadiums — Virginia Beach, Baltimore and Philly in the east; Boston and Syracuse up north; Atlanta and Charlotte down south; Chicago, Minneapolis and Houston in the heartland and San Francisco out west.
But will Joel remain in a New York state of mind? Among a rash of real estate transactions in the last two years, the most recent is a reputed $20 million beachfront deal in Manalapan.
However, it is not the property recently circulating in the gossip media.
Two years ago, Joel dumped his beachfront home in the Hamptons for $19.95 million and a Manhattan penthouse for $11.4 million. Last fall, his last New York property, the one-bedroom co-op below the penthouse, brought a puny $775,000. That all came after he sold his 8,000-square-foot-plus Mediterranean Revival estate on Miami’s LaGorce Island for $13.75 million in the summer of 2013.
With all that moolah, what’s a guy to do: Live on the tour bus? Crash with friends? Invest?
Reportedly at the urging of his friend, Howard Stern, who has a $60 million estate on Palm Beach’s “Millionaire’s Row” just south of the Beach Club, Joel began looking nearby. As word oozed into the local real estate community, some compared the frenzy to the early scenes in Jaws. But Joel wasn’t in a hurry, and he soon discovered that lots of beachfront property can still be had … down south … in Manalapan.
Last March, under the awning of South Florida Living LLC, he paid $11.8 million for a 13,200-square-foot house on just under two acres of ocean-to-lake property. The seller was Dennis Hammond, a St. Louis investment consultant. Two months later, Joel bought the vacant lot next door — cleared land, ready to build, west of A1A, nothing but privacy-protecting scrub to the beach — for $6.5 million.
Immediately south of the vacant lot is a one-of-a-kind majestic estate that has been on the market for some time. But contrary to one erroneous report that was cut-and-pasted into the media nationwide, Billy Joel didn’t buy it.
Instead he purchased another grand house … in Manalapan … on the ocean … but farther up the beach. For approximately $20 million, he should have plenty of room — 20,000 square feet — for a piano, and an orchestra and a few (hundred) guests.
Bill Joel paid about $20 million for this home built by Robert Fessler in Manalapan. Photo provided
Barely 5 years old, the house was built as a “spec home” by Robert Fessler on a 150-foot-wide lot carved from the old “Vanderbilt Estate.” Fessler sold it to Donald Adam, a banker from College Station, Texas, in September 2011 for $15 million.
In the Mediterranean style, it features nine bedrooms, 16 baths, gatehouse with guest suite, media room, billiard room and bar, library, multibay garage, elevators and wine cellar, plus ocean views for all major rooms.
The grand estate home next to the two lakefront properties Joel bought is magnificent. Megayacht-sized dock out back, 30-car underground garage, tunnel under A1A — but then it isn’t directly on the ocean and the asking price is near $30 million.
“It’s quite unusual to have a property of this nature in our marketplace,” listing agent John Poletto of Nestler Poletto Sotheby’s International Realty said.
The ocean-to-Intracoastal house was completed in 1983 for Roger King, who revolutionized television in the 1970s, but is perhaps best known for launching Oprah Winfrey, as well as Dr. Phil and Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.
It was ideal for Tom Gerrard, who bought the property in 2001. As a youngster in Indiana and then Fort Lauderdale, Gerrard worked in gas stations and dreamed of someday owning one of the fancy cars he serviced.
After graduating from Florida Atlantic University, he made waves in construction and telecommunications and eventually the dream became reality. The underground parking was perfect, as the collection — stocked with American classics from the ’50s and ’60s — grew.
Gerrard served as mayor of Manalapan from 2008 to 2010. He now splits time between the old haunts in Broward County and a residence in Big Sky, Mont. When the offer is right, he’ll sell his luxury “garage.”
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