ziff - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-29T11:34:24Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/ziffManalapan: Town to allow dividing of Ziff estatehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/manalapan-town-to-allow-dividing-of-ziff-estate2020-01-01T17:30:00.000Z2020-01-01T17:30:00.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960922901,original{{/staticFileLink}}" target="_blank"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960922901,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960922901?profile=original" /></a>A tunnel of trees surrounds State Road A1A as it winds through the Ziff estate in Manalapan. <strong>File photo/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
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<p><strong>By Dan Moffett</strong></p>
<p>For close to three decades Manalapan and the Ziff family have worked together to preserve a largely pristine, 15.6-acre parcel that has defined with its natural beauty the town’s southern entrance on A1A.<br /> The town has been willing to allow the family exceptions to codes and building rules — variances that recognized the historic and aesthetic contributions of the property known as Gemini. In return, the Ziffs pledged to keep the family’s land as it is, in one unbroken waterfront parcel, and to resist the temptation to divide it into lots for development.<br /> That longtime understanding between town and family came to an end on Dec. 10 when the commission unanimously voted to allow a total of four lots on the property.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960923855,original{{/staticFileLink}}" target="_blank"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960923855,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960923855?profile=original" /></a><em>William Bernard Ziff Jr. had workers remove exotic vegetation like Australian pines and assemble a world-class tropical garden. Ziff died in 2006, leaving the property to his family.</em></p>
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<p style="text-align:left;">John Randolph, the family’s attorney, told the Town Commission that despite trying to find a buyer since 2016, the Ziffs have been unable to sell the property as a whole. Originally listed for $195 million, the asking price now has fallen to around $165 million, a number that still would be a record-breaker for Palm Beach County real estate.<br /> Randolph told commissioners that for the family to sell the property, it had to be divided into smaller parcels.<br /> “This property as you know has been on the market for about five years without us being able to obtain a purchaser,” he said. “Our purpose here is not to subdivide it for the family but to subdivide it to make it more attractive for a buyer.”<br /> Randolph asked the town to divide the largest parcel on the northern end of the property into three separate lots.<br /> “If we would start from scratch and level everything we would be entitled to eight lots under your zoning code,” he said. “But we feel that would not be in the interest of the town or the family. What we propose here we feel is a win-win for everybody.<br /> “I just can’t think of a better way to preserve the property.”</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960923878,original{{/staticFileLink}}" target="_blank"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960923878,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960923878?profile=original" /></a><em>The approved subdivision keeps the existing main home, but allows the removal of outdated support structures. The Ziffs hope the room for new development will entice buyers. <strong>Photo and rendering provided</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><br /> Mayor Keith Waters was less enthusiastic. He said it was “a really complicated decision” for the commission because of the potentially troublesome precedent that might be set, one that could undermine the town’s code.<br /> “We are being asked something we were told would never be asked,” Waters said.<br /> Joining Randolph in the appeal was Dirk Ziff, 54, the eldest of three sons of billionaire publishing magnate William Bernard Ziff Jr. and an heir to the family fortune built on magazines such as Car and Driver and PC Magazine.<br /> Dirk Ziff said he never expected to come to the town and ask for permission to break up the property — “it never occurred to us at all” — until efforts to sell it foundered.<br /> “No one is going to feel sorry for our family,” Ziff said about the marketing failure. “We’re a very fortunate family. But it’s uncomfortable coming forward. We want clarity. We want resolution.”<br /> Commissioner Stewart Satter, who has developed properties in Florida, reminded Ziff that the town had given the family “preferential treatment” over the years in return for the promise not to divide the land. Satter asked whether the problems selling it as a whole weren’t “all about price.” Why not drop the listing number lower?<br /> Ziff told the commission it was difficult to find a buyer who was willing to do the preservation work, all the maintenance and pay all the taxes that Gemini demands. “We tried really hard for five years,” Ziff said.<br /> Satter asked if the Ziffs aren’t “trying to maximize value.”<br /> “Of course that’s true,” Ziff said. “There’s just an economic reality here that I’m not ashamed of.”<br /> Waters said the town wants to try to preserve the canopy — the tunnel of trees reaching across State Road A1A.<br /> “Dozens and dozens of people are asking about that canopy,” Waters said.<br /> The commission voted 5-0 to approve the subdivision and allow four lots. As part of the approval, the town will require several structures to be torn down, golf holes to be removed and much of the land returned to its natural state. A provision that would encourage preserving the canopy was also approved, but enforcing preservation will be difficult, commissioners agreed.<br /> Officials say demolition and development are likely at least a couple of years away.</p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><br /> <strong>In other business:</strong> <br /> There will be no Manalapan election in March, but one commissioner will be replaced.<br /> Clark Appleby is leaving because of term limits. Taking his at-large seat is former Commissioner Chauncey Johnstone, who qualified and was unopposed. <br /> Vice Mayor Simone Bonutti and Commissioner Richard Granara also were unopposed and are returning.</p></div>Manalapan: Potential sale of Ziff estate awakens its colorful historyhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/manalapan-potential-sale-of-ziff-estate-awakens-its-colorful-hist2015-04-29T18:16:25.000Z2015-04-29T18:16:25.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960572285,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960572285,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="538" alt="7960572285?profile=original" /></a></strong><em>The 15.65-acre Ziff estate reaches from the Atlantic Ocean to Intracoastal Waterway, dominating this aerial view of Manalapan north of the Boynton Inlet. <strong>Photo/Bing Maps</strong></em></p>
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<p><strong>By Christine Davis</strong><br /> <br />People born under the astrological sign Gemini are said to love to talk, but when it comes to Manalapan’s Gemini, the Ziff family’s 15.65-acre compound at 2000 S. Ocean, mum’s the word, except word is out that the property is on the market for $195 million.<br /> Gemini the compound, with its quiet yet glamorous mystique, can’t help but garner attention. <br /> The 12-bedroom main house, which was reconstructed in 2003, has 62,220 square feet, and the guest house named the Mango House has seven bedrooms, according to recent news reports. Other structures on the property include two guest cottages and a manager’s house. <br /> Altogether the buildings total 85,000 square feet, with 33 bedrooms, 34 bathrooms and 13 powder rooms. <br /> Also mentioned are Gemini’s beautiful botanic garden with 1,500 species of tropical trees and plants.<br /> Other features include a large-scale train in a butterfly garden and a golf practice course. Tax records note five structures on the property and tennis courts, boat docks, a boatlift, reflection pond, a utility building, basketball court and pool.<br /> When the property was on the market in 1973 (for an unknown price), here’s the gist of what society columnist Suzy Knickerbocker had to say about it: Gemini was owned by Great Britain’s brewery scion, the “incomparable” Loel Guinness and his wife, the “ravishing” Gloria, who had lived at Gemini for 20 years at that point. <br /> Going back further, she pointed out, the estate had been built by Mrs. Paul Mellon’s father, Jerry Lambert (of the Lambert pharmaceutical company). “It’s so beautiful, you could swoon,” she wrote. “But bring money.”</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960572298,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="750" class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960572298,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="7960572298?profile=original" /></a><em>Most drivers on A1A do not realize they are driving over a living room and that the property’s lush landscaping conceals 85,000 square feet of buildings. <strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p><br /> The residence, she explained, was in two parts, so aptly called Gemini: one part oriented to the ocean and the second part to the lake.<br /> The estate’s amenities were bountiful: 1,417 feet on both the ocean and the Intracoastal, a two-story, 39-room Georgian/British Colonial main house with six master suites and a living room that stretched under A1A (joining the residence’s two parts), a salt-water 50-by-25-foot pool, a pitch and putt green, a private island off-shore, helicopter pads (one with landing lights), and two studios, all set in exotically landscaped gardens.<br /> Other newspaper articles of the time mention that Jackie Kennedy Onassis visited the Guinnesses, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.<br /> An interesting side note: In 1981, Gemini was rented by Silvio De Lindegg and Adelita Scarpa for $10,000 a month. De Lindegg was a Gatsby-esque international land developer, and his lady friend, Scarpa, a Brazilian heiress. <br /> He had convinced investors and banks to put millions into his building projects, but his deals went south, he defaulted on loans, he went bankrupt, and the duo disappeared.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960573456,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960573456,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="267" alt="7960573456?profile=original" /></a><em>The Wall Street Journal broke the news of the quiet marketing of the estate.</em></p>
<p><br /> Since the Ziffs have owned the property, many changes have been made to the structures and the landscaping. Currently, the Manalapan estate is not listed on the MLS, but it is offered for sale through agents at Christie’s International Real Estate and Premier Estate Properties in Boca Raton.<br /> Manalapan town records on the property date back only to 1974. They indicate that no new structures were added until 2003, when the Mango House, also referred to in the records as a caretaker’s house, was built in the southwest portion of the property. <br /> Nothing was torn down, either, according to Lisa Petersen, town clerk, but there were many renovations and remodels noted on the ARCOM index. <br /> She noted two tunnels to the beach recorded, one in 2000 and a south tunnel in 2007 (and Knickerbocker mentioned the tunnel, or actually, a room under A1A, in 1973). That makes three tunnels on the property. (The main house, by the way, was designed by Marion Syms Wyeth in the 1940s, but now has a different look.) <br /> Ann Ziff is listed as being on the board of trustees for Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami. Carl Lewis, director of the Fairchild garden noted that the garden routinely exchanges rare plants with a large number of peer institutions, both public and private, to ensure the survival of those species in cultivation. “Gemini Gardens is one of those institutions,” he said, and this is standard operating procedure for any garden that grows rare species. <br /> In 1992, William B. Ziff Jr. sold the Ziff-Davis publishing empire for $1.4 billion. His father co-founded the company in 1927, and Ziff Jr. inherited it in 1953. He died in 2006.</p></div>