Casa Eleda's $105 Million Listing Comes With Landmark Review

Casa Eleda, the Maurice Fatio residence at 920 South Ocean Boulevard, was listed on August 28 for $105 million. The Palm Beach Board of Realtors listing records seven bedrooms, 10 full bathrooms, four powder rooms and 13,171 square feet of living area on 1.05 acres. Across the road, the property includes an ocean parcel with deeded access, more than 150 feet of frontage, a private tunnel with an elevator and a beach cabana.

The asking price equals $7,972 per square foot of living area, according to the listing. That calculation does not capture the full proposition. Casa Eleda is also identified as a Palm Beach landmark, so the buyer would acquire both a substantial residential compound and a property subject to the town’s historic review process. The $105 million figure remains an asking price, not evidence of a completed sale.

What is included at 920 South Ocean Boulevard

MLS data separates 13,171 square feet of living area from 22,754 square feet total. The lot measures 45,739 square feet. The room program includes an ocean-facing formal living room, dining room, library, primary suite, office, exercise room, recreation room, elevator and wine cellar. The listing also identifies a pool, several loggias, a courtyard and a fountain, and states that the house is being sold unfurnished.

The ocean access is a central part of the offering because the main residence sits west of South Ocean Boulevard. The separate parcel on the Atlantic side contains a cabana with a living room, wet bar and full bathroom. The private tunnel links the two sides and includes an elevator, according to the current marketing description. In practical terms, the property is not direct oceanfront in the conventional single-parcel sense, but its ownership structure is designed to preserve private access without crossing the road at street level.

A Town Council agenda from March 12, 2014 records an application by Marion Hugh and Penelope Antonini for a special exception to construct a 500-square-foot cabana on the ocean parcel. The town document described that parcel as having 167 feet of frontage. The 2026 listing uses the broader description of more than 150 feet. A purchaser would still need the current survey and title documents to establish the controlling dimensions, parcel boundaries and access rights.

The name, the facade and a one-year discrepancy

Published architectural accounts identify banker Mortimer L. Schiff and his wife, Adele, as the original clients. Casa Eleda takes its name from Adele spelled backward. Fatio designed the residence in the Italian Romanesque style, using horizontal bands of red brick and pale coral or coquina stone. Those alternating layers produced the local nickname, the Ham and Cheese House.

The dating is not perfectly uniform. The current MLS record gives 1927 as the year built. The Wall Street Journal describes the house as designed around 1928, while Veranda and Air Mail also use 1928. The most defensible description is therefore a late-1920s Fatio residence rather than an insistence on one year that the available records do not consistently support.

Veranda’s account of the interior project credits Susan Zises Green with updating the rooms while retaining original light fixtures, visible patina and period details. The current listing names Smith Architectural Group for interior architecture and Mario Nievera for the landscape. The published images and descriptions show why the building’s identity rests less on a single decorative scheme than on the recurring brick and stone facade, carved coral elements, arched openings, ceilings and courtyard arrangement.

Landmark status changes the buyer’s due diligence

The MLS identifies Casa Eleda as a landmark structure. Palm Beach’s Landmarks Manual explains that designation does not prohibit additions or alterations, but exterior changes require review for compatibility with the building’s architectural integrity. An owner seeking exterior work must file for a Certificate of Appropriateness. Demolition requires approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission and ratification by the Town Council.

That framework is neither a footnote nor a reason to dismiss the property. It establishes the boundaries within which a future owner, architect and contractor would work. The 2014 cabana application is a useful example of how improvements connected to the estate can enter a public approval process. Before assigning value to further expansion, a buyer would need to review prior approvals, open permits, surveys and the precise landmark designation rather than rely on listing language alone.

Landmark control can also separate Casa Eleda from houses whose value is driven principally by land and redevelopment potential. Here, demolition is not an ordinary assumption. The architecture is part of the asset and part of the constraint. That distinction matters when comparing the $7,972-per-square-foot ask with newer South Ocean Boulevard properties that may carry different regulatory and construction histories.

The 2013 sale is context, not a valuation formula

The listing history records a $15.975 million sale in June 2013. The Wall Street Journal reports that the current owners then completed a multiyear renovation. Comparing that closed price directly with today’s $105 million ask would mix several variables: the renovation, changes in the Palm Beach market, more than a decade of ownership and the difference between a recorded transaction and an untested asking price.

For readers following PalmBeach.us property coverage, the useful measure will be the eventual outcome, not the launch number alone. Time on market, any price revisions and the final recorded consideration will show how buyers value the combination of Fatio authorship, a protected facade, a large house and controlled access to the Atlantic. Those data points can then be placed alongside broader reporting from Palm Beach Intelligence.

Casa Eleda reaches the market with an unusually clear identity and an unusually demanding price. The next question is not whether its history is recognizable. It is whether one buyer assigns nine-figure value to that history while accepting the obligations that protect it.