The contemporary, two-story stucco home is the priciest home for sale in affluent Florida town
This contemporary, two-story stucco home is the priciest home for sale in Palm Beach asking $96 million. GOOGLE MAPS
Retired Barnes & Noble chief Leonard Riggio has listed his oceanfront Palm Beach, Florida, estate for $96 million.
The 1970s home, which hit the market late last week, includes over 8,000 square feet of living space on 1.6 acres of oceanfront land at the northern end of the barrier island. The site, which offers 205 feet of ocean frontage, is extended by a federally preserved dune and beach across the way. And with six guest suites in addition to the primary bedroom and a separate apartment for the help, this compound is geared for entertaining family and friends.
The contemporary, two-story stucco home is airy and angled, with palm trees shading it from the heat, along with a pool and close to 1,700 square feet of patio and terrace space. That includes a covered patio leading to the pool deck, and a sun terrace above that overlooking the pool, each spanning around 800 square feet.
Other features include an atrium with a frosted-glass ceiling at the front of the home, an oceanfront balcony off the primary bedroom, and large black-trimmed windows in almost every room.
Riggio purchased the home on North Ocean Boulevard in 2003 for $14 million, along with his wife, Louise, and expanded it with the purchase of a neighboring parcel for $1.45 million in 2009, according to the Palm Beach Post, which first reported the listing, and confirmed by property records.
Leonard Riggio and Louise Riggio attend the Parrish Art Museum Midsummer Party at Parrish Art Museum on July 13, 2019, in Water Mill, NY.
Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Riggio, a native New Yorker, was operating several college bookstores when he acquired Barnes & Noble in 1971, nearly a century after it was founded, but which then consisted of a single store in Manhattan.
Riggio grew the brand into the largest bookstore chain in the U.S. by acquiring rivals and creating the concept of the “superstore,” before its fortunes fell in the age of e-commerce and Amazon. Riggio retired in 2016, and Barnes & Noble was acquired out of bankruptcy by hedge fund Elliott Advisors several years later, surviving the naysayers to live another day, albeit in a weakened form.
Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates is marketing the property. Moens and the Riggios couldn’t be reached for comment.
The Riggios also run the Riggio Foundation and have donated to a wide variety of causes, and were instrumental in the founding of the Dia Art Foundation’s Dia Beacon art museum in Beacon, New York.
The couple also owns homes in Manhattan, in the equestrian town of Wellington, Florida, according to the Palm Beach Daily News, and in Bridgehampton, New York.
The home’s $96 million price tag makes this the most expensive home on the market in Palm Beach, with the nearest listing being a $72.8 million home on the Intracoastal, which has been on the market for over a year. In May, a deal closed for above that price, when a private island just off Palm Beach sold for $152 million.
