Palm Beach founder Henry Flagler is moving— well, his statue is — to Main Street

The Palm Beach Town Council approved funds up to $22,000 on Wednesday to relocate the statue to the town’s Main Street. Flagler’s descendant is also contributing up to $11,000 to cover project costs, according to the Palm Beach Daily News.

Flagler was the founder of Standard Oil and of what became the Florida East Coast Railway and was a pioneer in the development of Florida. He is considered the father of Miami and Palm Beach. He died in Palm Beach in 1913.

The 11-foot bronze Flagler statue will be moved to the Royal Poinciana Way median east of the Flagler Memorial Bridge and Bradley Place intersection in Palm Beach.

During the reconstruction of the new Flagler Memorial Bridge, the 11-foot Flagler was put in storage. Before that, it was east of the north bridge near the Golden Eagle and flagpole, according to the Palm Beach Daily News.

“I think it’s a much better location in the Royal Poinciana median,” Mayor Gail Coniglio told the Palm Beach Daily News. “It’s a better separation of the flag and the eagle as you cross the bridge.” — Grace Guarnieri

The assessments are for 30 years and the town estimates the average at $1,134 for a single-family home and $316 for a condo, annually.

Two Palm Beach residents just filed suit against the town over a planned project to underground utility lines.

Condominium owner Carol Kosberg and single-family homeowner Michael Scharf filed a lawsuit seeking class action status, after the town council’s recent vote to levy special assessments on property owners to fund the estimated $90 million project, the Palm Beach Daily News reported.

The suit also lists Palm Beach County Property Appraiser Dorothy Jacks and Palm Beach County Tax Collector Anne Gannon as defendants.

Town Manager Tom Bradford told the Palm Beach Daily News that the project groundbreaking ceremonies are still scheduled for Friday.

Last week, Kosberg dropped her lawsuit filed last year that alleged ballot language was misleading in a March 2016 referendum to vote on financing the project.

In the new suit, Kosberg and Scharf allege that the special assessments are invalid because the town used a consultant’s “arbitrary assessment methodology,” and that the consultant’s report “hypothesized” special benefits of safety, reliability, and aesthetics based on a property’s size, density, location and other factors, according to the Palm Beach Daily News.

Kosberg and Scharf filed the lawsuit as a class action on behalf of themselves and the owners of more than 7,000 condo units, single-family homes and commercial properties in Palm Beach.

The Palm Beach assessments are for 30 years and the town estimates the average assessment at $1,134 for a single-family home and $316 for a condo, annually.[PalmBeachDailyNews] — Ina Cordle

Ivana Trump sells Palm Beach house for $16.6 million, deed shows.

Ivana Trump’s Concha Marina — the landmarked oceanfront house she bought 20 years ago in the wake of her famous split from Donald Trump — has sold for $16.6 million, according to the deed recorded this week.

Fashion designer and Gulf Stream property owner Tomas Maier is behind the revocable trust that bought the house. The trust is in the name of Thomas R. Maier, a name associated in public documents with the German-born designer. A Tomas Maier apparel boutique operates in the Via Mizner, and he also is the creative director for the Italian fashion label Bottega Veneta.

Ivana Trump paid $4.4 million for the Estate Section house in 1994, two years after her divorce became final.

Mizner-designed house

Noted society architect Addison Mizner designed Concha Marina in 1921, although it later was expanded significantly by other architects. With about 174 feet of beachfront, the property today has nine bedrooms and 14,406 square feet of living space, inside and out, according to sales listing.

The house stands on a lot measuring a little more than three-quarters of an acre with a lawn facing the sea. It’s about a half-mile north of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, the couple’s vacation home while they were married.

Among its features, the property has an underground tunnel linking the property to the beach across South Ocean Boulevard.

Ties to Palm Beach

Ivana Trump owned the house in her name and had it homesteaded in Palm Beach County’s tax rolls. She said through a spokeswoman earlier this year that the time had come to downsize. With her three children grown, she said she no longer needs as much space. She also has homes in Miami, London and St. Tropez in the south of France, according to published reports.

Her spokeswoman said Trump plans to maintain ties to Palm Beach because of her children. But she provided no specific information about whether Trump would buy a new home here.

In 1990, the town granted the Jungle Road property landmark status, protecting some of the home’s exterior walls from significant alteration.

Layout evolved

Although he is said to have designed Concha Marina for himself, Mizner sold it a year later to George and Isobel Dodge Sloane. In 1963, many of its original furnishings and fixtures were sold by the Sloane estate in an auction described as one of the most important events of the season, according to coverage in the Daily News.

Concha Marina also was an important venue for social events during the Sloanes’ ownership, newspaper coverage shows. In 1947, for instance, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were guests of honor at a dinner party there.

Among the architects who worked on the house in the years after it was built were Marion Sims Wyeth, Maurice Fatio, Henry Harding, John Volk, Bryan Simonson and Jeffery Smith. The house’s L-shaped layout has been re-worked considerably over the years, but Mizner’s original architecture is still evident.

In 2012, the Florida chapter of the American Institute of Architects placed the house on a Top 100 list of architecturally significant buildings in the state. It was one of six Palm Beach buildings so honored.

“Although the house has been altered over the course of time, it is a good example of how a Palm Beach house has evolved through the influence of different architects working in the same idiom. Each architect enhanced the pre-existing composition,” reads the AIA statement about the house.

Smith designed a significant restoration project for owner Herbert S. Pheeney, a real estate broker who bought it for $3.5 million in 1989 and later sold it to Trump.

Much of the restoration was spent uncovering and replicating original details that had been removed, disguised or painted over before Pheeney bought it, Smith said.

Home in Gulf Stream

In 2011, Maier told the Daily News he was a fan of Palm Beach. “The town is a unique community, with a remarkable spirit of invention,” he said.

Under the name Thomas Maier, Maier co-owns an oceanfront house in Gulf Stream with Andrew Preston, his longtime partner and business associate, property records show. The two have owned the homesteaded house since 2006, and it is not listed for sale, according to MLS records.

Maier has signed a $10 million mortgage on the Jungle Road property, courthouse filings show.

Along with the Tomas Maier boutique in Palm Beach, another store operates in the Hamptons, and the company has announced plans for a  New York City venue. Bottega Veneta includes locations on Worth Avenue and in Bal Harbour that sell the brand’s signature leather accessories, handbags and fashions.

In addition to the home on Jungle Road, Ivana Trump had bought a house in 1999 at 190 Via Palma she christened Solo Mio (“Mine Alone”). She remodeled it but reportedly never lived in the house before she sold it in 2004.

Trump is a Czechoslovakian native and former model whose business enterprises today include books, fragrances and a line of California wines. She and Donald Trump — her second husband — were married for more than 14 years and had three children together. She has since twice remarried and divorced, most recently to Rossano Rubicondi.

Dated June 27, the deed for 102 Jungle Road wasn’t recorded by the county clerk’s office until Monday.