Billionaire shopping mall magnate spends $4.725M in Palm Beach

Adolph Alfred Taubman and wife, Judith, bought a two-bedroom, four bath condo at 360 S. Ocean Blvd. in Palm Beach's Dunster House from Wade Shavell for $4.725 million on Feb. 22.

Shavell paid $3.4 million for Unit #0063 in July 2007.

Mr. Taubman is a real estate developer, shopping mall magnate, industrialist and philanthropist. The Michigan native made his fortune developing shopping malls throughout the country through Taubman Centers Inc., which he founded in 1950.

According to Forbes, he has a net worth of $1.2 billion.

His 2007 book, Threshold Resistance: The Extraordinary Career of a Luxury Retailing Pioneer, was a New York Times Best-seller.

Mr. Taubman purchased the Sotheby's auction house in 1983, survived an attempted hostile takeover of the company and took it public in 1988.

He was also the owner of A&W Restaurants, which he sold to Sagittarius Acquisitions in 1994.

His philanthropic activities include facility and cash donations in the field of medical research and the academia. At the University of Michigan, the Taubman Medical Library, Taubman Healthcare Center and Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning were named after him.

Mr. Taubman studied architecture at the University of Michigan and Lawrence Technological University, but graduated from neither.

Mrs. Taubman is a former Miss Israel beauty pageant winner.

Shavell is the former owner of a real estate company that was purchased by Coldwell Banker in 1999.

Condo sales in Palm Beach dropped 17 percent through December 2007 versus the same period in 2006. The median sales price also fell $800,000 to $750,000.

The Dunster House is a six-story condo building with two and three-bedroom units from $2 to $4.5 million.

BlockShopper Metrics started tracking condo sales in South Florida in 2001.

Address: 360 South Ocean Boulevard, Unit: C
Buyer(s): Judith M Taubman
Seller(s): A Alfred Taubman and Judith M Taubman
Sale date: Mar. 5, 2008

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