Palm Beach mansion goes to 40-year-old Daren Metropoulos for $148 mln
Daren Metropoulos, son of Greek-American billionaire investor Dean Metropoulos, has paid $148 million to buy a historic beachfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.
The 2,136-square-meter mansion on a 13,000-sq.m. plot belonged to the family of the late Canadian businessman William Penser, who died in 2021, according to information from The Wall Street Journal. Penser and his wife had purchased the property, which was designed and built in 1919, in 2003 for $12.1 million.
Forty-year-old Daren Metropoulos invests in branded iconic properties and is, among other things, the owner of the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles.
In a statement published in the US newspaper, Metropoulos describes his new acquisition as one of “Palm Beach’s most historic architectural treasures.”
“I am delighted to continue the tradition of preserving this jewel and ensuring that its classic charm and elegance continue to endure,” he says.
The house was designed by well-known architect Addison Mizner and is a typical example of the Mediterranean Revival Decor school that developed in 1920-1930 in America with influences from the Spanish Renaissance.
Known as Casa Amado, it boasts 10 bedrooms, a gym and cinema room, a swimming pool and tennis court and has 67 meters of Atlantic Ocean frontage. Built by businessman Charles A. Moon, in 2007, the mansion went up in flames after a lightning strike.
Daren Metropoulos is a top executive at private equity firm Metropoulos & Co, as is his brother Evan.
The fund has invested in brands such as Hostess, Pabst Brewing and Utz. Daren co-owns BlueTriton Brands, a bottled water company. He is described by the Wall Street Journal as “an avid collector of luxury homes in New York, Miami Beach, Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard.”
In 2016, he bought the Playboy Mansion, Hugh Hefner’s famous mansion, for $100 million, a then-record amount for Los Angeles. It has also financed film productions such as Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 2018.
Real estate prices in Palm Beach, Fla., have skyrocketed in the past few years with the record so far set last year when a car dealership owner paid $170 million for a nearly 1600-sq.m. property on North County Road.
