In some of America’s most expensive ZIP codes, ultra-wealthy buyers are snapping up nine-figure mansions only to tear them down and replace them with something more in line with their tastes. THE The Wall Street Journal Katherine Clarke presents the example of cosmetics billionaire William P. Lauder, who purchased Rush Limbaugh’s Palm Beach estate for $155 million in 2023. Clarke points out that the 24,000-square-foot home was from the early 1990s and featured a large Versailles-style living room. Lauder razed everything in a few months.
Palm Beach and neighboring towns are the epicenter, with Clarke writing that buyers with deep enough pockets compete for “well-located land—a stretch of beachfront or mountaintop that can’t be replicated, unlike the house that sits there.” Entrepreneurs and developers define it as a matter of taste; Preservation and sustainability experts warn of carbon costs and waste, even when some materials are recovered. The logic of dismantling extends beyond billionaires and Palm Beach, and surfaces everywhere from suburban Houston to the beach towns of the Florida Panhandle, where Clarke spoke with a couple who paid $3.7 million for a house they demolished. They described it as the only beachfront land available in their desired location. Read the full story to learn more about the trend.
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