Just put under contract, the Manalapan estate will be bought for $55.5 million by next-door neighbor, says the seller, homebuilder and Manalapan resident Joseph Farrell of Farrell Cos.
Darrell Hofheinz
Palm Beach Daily News
Published: 1:29 p.m. ET March 11, 2025 Updated: 12:29 p.m. ET March 12, 2025
(This story has been updated to accurately reflect the most current information.)
An estate under renovation with an asking price of $95 million is under contract near Palm Beach — and the buyer is the neighbor immediately to the north, who plans to knock down the in-the-works mansion after buying the property for $55.5 million, said the seller, luxury homebuilder Joe Farrell.
Property records show the neighbor of the in-the-works mansion and its guesthouse is WeatherTech founder and CEO David F. MacNeil, who bought his estate next door through an ownership company for a recorded $38.5 million last year in Manalapan, the wealthy town south of Palm Beach.
MacNeil could not be immediately reached for comment.
Farrell had been renovating the estate at 1140 S. Ocean Blvd. as a speculative project with plans to resell it. He bought the property for a recorded $32.5 million early last year.
The ocean-to-lake property Farrell is selling went under contract March 11, according to an updated sales listing, which says the sale is expected to close May 23.
The Palm Beach Daily News is the first media outlet to report the so-called “pending” sale.
The purchase would expand MacNeil’s estate by 1.6 acres to a grand total of 3.56 acres. It would also add an extra 150 feet of frontage on the ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. The addition would give MacNeil a total of about 343 feet of waterfront on the east and west sides of his estate. At both estates, the costal road separates the lake parcels from the larger oceanfront parcels.
Farrell has been in the middle of an extensive renovation of the 1990s-era house and the separate guesthouse. But Farrell won’t complete the renovation and will step away form the property’s ownership after the sale, he told the Palm Beach Daily News.
“The person who bought it from me didn’t want the house. He’s knocking it down,” said Farrell, who heads Farrell Building Co. and Farrell Cos.
Farrell never before had a buyer purchase one of his in-the-works projects with plans to raze it, he said. But opportunity knocked and he answered.
“A deal came long and I opted to leave the casino early,” Farrell said.
A rendering shows an ocean-to-lake estate designed as a speculative project at 1140 S. Ocean Blvd in Manalapan near Palm Beach. The estate, which is listed for sale, mid-construction, at $95 million, has been put under contract by an immediate neighbor, who will pay for $55.5 million for it and then clear the land, according the seller. Rendering Provided By Farrell Cos.
MacNeil bought his 1950s-era estate, at 1120 S. Ocean Blvd., through an ownership company at the tail end April 2024, property records show.
MacNeil owns WeatherTech, which is based in Greater Chicago and manufactures car accessories such as floor mats and cellphone holders as well as other products, the company’s website shows. He founded the company in 1989.
Farrell’s renovation plans called for the main house to have 19,000 square feet with a 4,000-square-foot guesthouse. In all there would have been 13 bedrooms. The project changed the architectural style from Mediterranean to contemporary.
With a home of his own in Manalapan, Farrell is well known for building luxury homes in the Hamptons on New York’s Long Island. He also has carried out real estate projects in South Florida.
Premier Estate Properties agent Margit Brandt listed the estate for Farrell in August. She also is handling the buyer’s side of the upcoming sale, she confirmed, although she would not identify the buyer by name. She declined to comment further.
The property lies about a mile north of the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, the luxury hotel that sold last year to billionaire and Manalapan homeowner Larry Ellison for about $277.4 million.
When Farrell bought the estate in January 2024, a down-to-the-studs renovation and addition project had been underway for several years. By the time deed recorded for the January sale, Farrell Building Co. had already filed a notice of construction with Palm Beach County that said the work would involve interior and exterior renovations at the property.
“This masterfully configured residence has the most stunning ocean and Intracoastal views at the highest elevation in Manalapan,” says Brandt’s listing, which entered the multiple listing service Aug. 13.
Farrell has only the shell of the house finished, he said. His plans for the estate called for two swimming pools with whirlpool spas, a pool cabana with a summer kitchen, a pickleball court and garage parking for eight cars.
Priced at $95 million, a house being extensively renovated for resale at 1140 S. Ocean Blvd. in Manalapan near Palm Beach has been put under contract a,ccording to an updated sales listing. The seller says the buyer is an immediate neighbor who will raze the in-the-works house to expand his estate. Rendering Provided By Premier Estate Properties
Improvements on the west side of the property were designed to include a new lakefront dock and seawall. The mansion’s layout would have included a great room, a media room and a den-and-office.
When MacNeil bought the house last year, he was represented by agent Tim Elmes of Compass Florida. In that sale, the listing agents were Gary Pohrer and Nick Malinosky of Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
Although sales in Manalapan have slowed over the past 18 months, asking prices for premium properties remain far higher than before the coronavirus pandemic-sparked the real estate boom that arrived in the area in early 2021, real estate observers say.
The boom — and the escalating prices — came, in part, because some homebuyers bought in Manalapan after they couldn’t find waterfront estates in Palm Beach, where housing inventory shrank dramatically during the first years of the pandemic. The housing boom also was fueled by the work-at-home trend and Florida’s favorable tax climate.
A rendering shows a contemporary-style house that is under construction as a speculative project at 1140 S. Ocean Blvd in Manalapan near Palm Beach. The estate has landed under contract after being listed for sale at $95 million. The seller says an immediate neighbor will buy it for $55.5 million and raze it. Rendering Provided By Premier Estate Properties
The most expensive property ever listed in Manalapan is priced at $285 million. That spec house, which has not yet broken ground at 1960 S. Ocean Blvd., is being offered with house plans at a price that would include the yet-to-be-built mansion. The seller of that 1.5-acre property is a company associated with former Manalapan Mayor Stewart Satter of Carnegie Hill Development, and the listing agent is Malinosky, who put the property on the market in January.
The second-most-expensive Manalapan property in the MLS is an ocean-to-lake estate being offered, with a furnished mansion, at $150 million. Owned by British billionaire hedge-fund manager Christopher Rokos, that property encompasses nearly 3 acres and was listed in mid-February by agent Jack Elkins of William Raveis South Florida.
The most expensive residential property ever sold after being listed in Manalapan was that massive estate on the far south end of town that is today owned by Ellison, who co-founded Oracle software. That estate at 2000 S. Ocean Blvd. was initially priced in 2017 with part of an island nearby — for a total of about 22 acres — at $165 million. But the price had dropped to $115 million when the property finally sold in 2021 to Netscape billionaire Jim Clark for a recorded $94 million. In 2022, Ellison paid a recorded $173 million for the property in an off-market deal.
This is a developing story. Check back for any updates.
Before developer Farrell Cos. bought the ocean-to-lake estate at 1140 S. Ocean Blvd. in Manalapan in January 2024, a renovation-and-addition project was already underway on the property. That project, seen in this rendering, included a guesthouse, foreground, and the oceanfront mansion in the rear. Provided By Douglas Elliman Real Estate