The recently built estate at 110 Churchill Way in Point Manalapan sold for more than $17 million, topping the neighborhood’s previous best by more than $2 million. Photo provided
By Christine Davis
A driver crossing the Ocean Avenue bridge from Lantana enters Hypoluxo Island, a 3-mile-long island subdivision with about 315 single-family homes.
Properties on the island, split between Manalapan and Lantana — and including Point Manalapan at its southern end — have more than doubled from their pre-pandemic prices, said Jason Haverkamp of William Raveis Real Estate.
In Point Manalapan, Charles M. Adams sold his home at 110 Churchill Way for a recorded $17.12 million in December to Martin and Jean Shafiroff.
“It was an off-market for $18.95 million net,” explained Haverkamp, who with Pamela O’Connor represented the buyers of the Manalapan property. Both are agents with William Raveis Real Estate.
“It’s a unique property, a new-construction home on a private protected waterway on three-quarters of an acre and it’s also the largest home in this neighborhood,” Haverkamp said.
It is also a record-breaking sale for its area, topping the $14.8 million sale in June of 1423 Lands End Road, in the Lantana portion of the island.
Buyer Martin Shafiroff is the vice chairman of global wealth management at Stifel, and Jean Shafiroff is an author and philanthropist.
Adams, an executive of Adams Communications & Engineering Technology, was represented by Mercedes Foster, an agent with Real Broker LLC.
“Homes on Hypoluxo Island offer so much in terms of size and views and are a far better value than homes on Palm Beach. It’s definitely an up-and-coming area that is becoming much more prestigious,” Haverkamp said.
As of late December, 14 residences were listed for sale on Hypoluxo Island, with six of those in Point Manalapan.
High-priced listings on Point Manalapan include a large home at 1275 Lands End Road in Manalapan on a double lot priced at $34.9 million, listed by Howard Parker of Howard A. Parker Realty LLC, and 1635 Lands End Road in Manalapan, priced at $20.5 million, listed by Lucrecia Lindemann, an agent with Dalton Wade Inc. Another property in that price point on the island, the home at 1422 SE Atlantic Drive in Lantana, is priced at $21 million and listed by Margit Brandt, an agent with Premier Estate Properties.
Other properties for sale include a home at 807 N. Atlantic Drive in Lantana, priced at $12.45 million and listed by Fern Fodiman, an agent with Sotheby’s International Realty; a home at 5 Barefoot Lane in Lantana priced at $11.995 million and listed by Steven Presson of the Corcoran Group; a home at 50 Spoonbill Road in Manalapan, priced at $8.995 million, also listed by Presson; and a home at 1690 Lands End Road in Manalapan, priced at $8.9 million and listed by Jack Elkins, an agent with William Raveis Real Estate.
Presson, a resident of Hypoluxo Island for seven years, has sold real estate on the island for 18 years, he said, adding that in 2025, he sold 12 homes on Hypoluxo Island with two pending sales in mid-December.
“I believe that the island has become one of the most coveted for coastal living in South Florida,” Presson said. “It’s beautiful, safe, scenic and has a sense of community. Many buyers have been priced out of Palm Beach and even West Palm Beach, but still want a coastal lifestyle, and Hypoluxo Island is at the top of their list.
“Before this recent buzz, once a quarter I’d see a celebrity or a name people would recognize. Now it’s once a week. I saw a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a supermodel and her family, and a professional athlete all in the last three weeks, all looking and previewing properties on Hypoluxo Island. They wanted to be in Palm Beach and were priced out, and just 25 minutes down A1A, they can live in a coastal community at a fraction of a cost without giving up the exclusivity and the privacy that they all were seeking.”
***
While Hypoluxo Island is no doubt attractive, coastal Manalapan along State Road A1A has the really big-ticket prices (the highest current listing is $150 million for an estate at 1370 S. Ocean Blvd.).
As far as recent sales go, Frank and Dolores Mennella sold their ocean-to-Intracoastal estate at 1940 S. Ocean Blvd. to WeatherTech founder David MacNeil, with a selling price of $75 million.
The Mennellas purchased their 1.94-acre piece of vacant land in 2018 from Billy Joel for $7.5 million, and built a 16,500-square-foot residence, with a cabana on the ocean side that can be accessed via an underground tunnel.
In this current deal, Philip Lyle Smith and Carla Ferreira-Smith of Luxury Resort Portfolio held the listing and Margit Brandt of Premier Estate Properties represented MacNeil.
This is MacNeil’s third Manalapan purchase in the last couple of years. In April 2024, MacNeil bought the vacant property at 1120 S. Ocean Blvd. for $38.5 million. Then last May he bought for $55 million the property at 1140 S. Ocean Blvd., an under-construction ocean-to-Intracoastal residence owned by a company affiliated with Joe Farrell of the Farrell Cos. Those properties, by the way, are back on the market as vacant land, priced at $125 million and listed by Brandt.
Billionaire investor and philanthropist Dr. Herbert “Herbie” Wertheim paid $61.75 million for a 27,745-total-square-foot estate at 1160 S. Ocean Blvd., Manalapan. Sited on 1.73 acres, the contemporary-style residence, rebuilt by Siobhan Zerilla of Bluedoor Building, includes a separate guesthouse, pool cabana, a dock, and 13-car garage.
The main house fronts 160 feet each on the ocean and Intracoastal Waterway.
Wertheim is an optometrist, inventor, scientist and stock investor. He founded and runs Brain Power Inc., a manufacturer of optical tints for eyeglasses.
The seller, NBU Land Trust, paid $28 million for the estate in 2021. Agents Candace Friis and Phil Friis represented the seller.
***
In Boca Raton, Thomas Wickwire, the chief investment officer at Boca Raton-based Livingston Street Capital, and his wife, Jeanne, sold their Intracoastal Waterway estate at 1203 Spanish River Road for $16.4 million. The new owner is David Breazzano, an executive with the Boca-based investment management firm Polen Capital. Premier Estate Properties agents brokered the deal. The home was bought with Gerard Liguori and listed by Joseph G. Liguori, who noted that it was “a landmark sale and a record price for an older renovated home” for the Estates Section on Boca Raton’s barrier island.
***
And just a footnote about Lion Country Safari ... The 254-acre park, complete with wildlife, just sold to the family of billionaire Larry Ellison, a Manalapan resident.
Here’s the comment on Lion Country Safari’s website. “After 58 years of leadership and dedication to wildlife, conservation and education, Lion Country Safari is saying farewell to the last members of its founding family, as ownership transitions to the Larry Ellison family who has a longstanding commitment to wildlife conservation. Our proud history and exemplary record in animal care, welfare and preservation will continue to be a core focus in the future. Operations will continue as normal, and our commitment to engagement, guest experience and wildlife conservation remains unchanged.”
For Ellison, one of the richest people in the world, did he get Lion Country Safari for a steal at $30 million, relatively speaking?
In 2024, he purchased Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa for $277.4 million, and in 2022, he bought the Ziff Estate, Gemini, at 2000 S. Ocean Blvd. in Manalapan, from Jim Clark for $173 million.
Here’s how that deal went down: Lion Country Safari Inc., managed by Charles Richard Koppel, sold the property for $12.71 million to Waverly Inc., also managed by Koppel.
Lion Country Safari terminated its land lease with Waverly, which was the tenant. Then, Waverly sold the property for $30 million to LCS Property LLC, which has the same address in Walnut Creek, California, as the Larry Ellison Foundation.
***
Doug Mills, the Pulitzer Prize-winning senior photographer for The New York Times, is featured in “Capturing the American Presidency” at the 2026 Alan B. and Charna Larkin Symposium. It’s at 4 p.m. Feb. 26 in FAU’s University Theatre, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton.
Mills recently earned his third Pulitzer Prize for his photographic coverage of the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. His first Pulitzer was in 1993 with the Associated Press for team coverage of the Clinton/Gore campaign, and he won a second Pulitzer for the Associated Press’ team investigative coverage of the Monica Lewinsky affair.
Following the symposium, attendees can view “America at 250: We Hold These Truths: We Walk These Grounds,” an exhibition featuring work by Mills in the Schmidt Gallery from Jan. 22 through March 29. General admission tickets for the lecture are $35.
To purchase a ticket, visit fauevents.universitytickets.com. Also, a VIP reception will be at 2:30 p.m. in the Schmidt Gallery hallway. Tickets for the reception, which include admission to the lecture, are $75.
The Schmidt Gallery is in the Performing Arts Building, building 51.
***
Theatre Lab, the professional resident company of Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, earned multiple awards for its 2024-25 productions. Theatre Lab won three Silver Palm Awards, which recognize contributions to South Florida theater.
Gage Callenius received the Outstanding Performance award for his role in The Last Yiddish Speaker. Iain Batchelor won the Actor and Puppeteer award for his role in The Impossible Task of Today. Nicole Perry won the Performer and Choreographer award for her role in The Impossible Task of Today.
Theatre Lab also had two winners among seven finalists at the 48th annual Carbonell Awards, which honor theatrical excellence at theaters from Miami-Dade to Palm Beach counties.
Deborah Zoe Laufer won an Outstanding New Work award for The Last Yiddish Speaker. Batchelor won an Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Lead Male Role award for his role in The Impossible Task of Today.
Theatre Lab finalists were Jeff Bower for Outstanding New Work in The Impossible Task of Today; Vaishnavi Sharma for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Lead Female Role award in The Impossible Task of Today; Patti Gardner for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Female Role in The Last Yiddish Speaker; Thomas Shorrock for Outstanding Lighting Design in The Last Yiddish Speaker; Matt Corey for Outstanding Sound Design in The Last Yiddish Speaker.
***
The Delray Beach Housing Authority elected Ivan Gomez as chairman and Ezra Krieg as vice chairman of its board of directors. This organization aims to offer safe housing to low- and moderate-income families. The Delray Housing Group elected Andrea Keiser as chairman and Noah Hale as vice chairman of its board of directors.
The Delray Housing Group is an affiliated nonprofit created by the Delray Beach Housing Authority to develop and manage affordable housing.
Christine Davis writes business news and can be reached at cdavis9797@gmail.com.
Comments