RISMEDIA, May 20, 2008- (MCT)-Donald Trump on Thursday morning publicly acknowledged he has a contract to sell his Palm Beach mansion for $100 million.
Then, in a roundabout way, the billionaire real estate mogul confirmed what everyone on the island already knows: That he has sold the former Abe Gosman mansion to a Russian.
“I just sold a house in Palm Beach for a number of approximately $100 million,” Trump told the hosts of CNBC’s Squawk Box during a wide-ranging interview on the economy.
Then, about five minutes into the interview, one of the CNBC commentators asked Trump this question: “Back in Palm Beach, I’m curious. Are you going to make the Russian who bought your house put up an American flag, like the big controversy you had with the town?” Trump’s instant reply: “I think what I’ll do is I will demand that he puts up the American flag — and the Russian flag can fly right under it.”
Trump recently signed a contract to sell his 80,000-square-foot estate to an unnamed foreign buyer at the full asking price of $100 million, The Palm Beach Post revealed Thursday. The 6-acre estate is located at 515 N. County Road.
Trump bought the property, the former home of health-care magnate Abe Gosman, for $41.35 million in 2004, following Gosman’s bankruptcy filing. Trump then poured $25 million into a renovation. He priced the home at $125 million when he put the estate up for sale in 2006.
This year, however, Trump dropped the price to $100 million.
If the Trump deal closes, it will set a record in Palm Beach. The standing record is $81.5 million, paid in April for the home of billionaire businessman Sidney Kimmel. The buyer of that home, at 1236 S. Ocean Blvd., was former Goldman Sachs partner John Thornton.
Copyright © 2008, The Palm Beach Post, Fla.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
