L
ouise Riggio, widow of Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio, has sold her oceanfront compound in Palm Beach for $81 million, making it one of the island's priciest sales this year. The buyer remains anonymous as the property was sold to a Delaware LLC managed by local law firm Rabideau Klein. Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates had the listing and is known for representing high-profile clients like Donald Trump and Ken Griffin.
The sale marks one of the priciest transactions in Palm Beach this year, with Riggio's estate joining an elite group of luxury properties that have changed hands recently. Her late husband founded Barnes & Noble in 1965 and grew it into a national powerhouse before retiring as executive chairman in 2016. The couple also owns a home in Wellington, a unit at New York City's Upper East Side co-op 720 Park Avenue, and a sprawling Hamptons estate.
The Palm Beach property was listed for $96 million in June and went under contract just weeks before Leonard Riggio's passing. The couple purchased the 8,000-square-foot mansion on 1.2 acres in 2003 for $14 million and added an adjacent quarter-acre lot for $1.4 million in 2009. Oceanfront properties like this are highly sought after, with Daren Metropoulos recently paying $148 million for a historic estate and Ideavillage founder Anand Khubani selling an oceanfront lot for $85 million.
Activity has picked up in Palm Beach's luxury real estate market following a pre-election slowdown, with several high-profile sales reported in recent weeks. Developer Todd Glaser sold a waterfront spec home to billionaire inventor Herbert Wertheim for $38 million earlier this month, and the home of late developer Jerry Schuster sold for $42.5 million in October.
