Home renovators spend $5.7M on late resident's Palm Beach home

W. Ted Gossett and Erick J. Cedron bought a 5,841-square-foot, 6.5 bath house at 134 Casa Bendita in Palm Beach for $5.7 million from the estate of the late Durie Appleton on July 18.

The house was built in 1970.

Gossett has been a licensed real estate agent since 1972. He is currently working as an associate broker at Washington Fine Properties, LLC. He's renovated houses in Washington, D.C, and Palm Beach.

Prior to joining Washington Fine Properties, he was an associate broker at Pardoe and Graham Real Estate in Washington, D.C. Before moving to Washington, D.C., he was a vice president and sales manager at Ruby Braswell Realty in Rocky Mount, N.C. He was also a president with Gossett and Company, Inc., and Gossett-Abee, Inc., in Raleigh, N.C., both development and investment real estate firms.

Cedron is also a renovator. He is currently working on several Capitol area houses.

Gossett and Cedron also own property at 190 Via Palma, which they bought from Ivana Trump, and 135 Wells Road, for which they paid $3.425 million.

Appleton was a longtime Palm Beach resident. She was a member of the board of trustees of the Preservation Foundation. She was rumored to have had a secret marriage with John F. Kennedy, which she denied and did not discuss publicly. She passed away last March at the age of 91.

Home sales in Palm Beach have dropped 16.3 percent thus far in 2008. The median sale price has also dropped $100,000, from $1.2 million in 2007 to $1.1 million so far this year.

Address: 134 Casa Bendita
Buyer(s): Erick J Cedron and W Ted Gossett
Seller(s): J P Morgan Chase Bank Na (Personal Representative), Durie Appleton (Estate), and Durie M Shevlin (Estate)
Sale date: 2008-07-18

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