Listed at about $2.4M, Palm Beach seaside condo proved to be ‘a good fit’ for the sellers

Almost 10 years ago, Cecilia Hamilton and her husband, Jay Ehrlich, were living in Miami when they decided to buy a condominium in Palm Beach to enjoy in their retirement.

At the time Ehrlich, a real estate professional, had already retired, and Hamilton, an accountant, was working in financial administration at Florida International University.

“We had a single-family home in Miami, and had worked with guy after guy after guy for (repair and upkeep) services,” says Hamilton. “We didn’t want to think about that anymore, so knew we wanted a condo.”

The couple eventually chose a South End apartment with ocean views — No. 105S in Beach Point at 2660 S. Ocean Blvd. — because it was “a good fit” for them, she explains.

“We looked a lot. We wanted ‘not Miami,’ and we have friends in Palm Beach.”

They liked that Beach Point’s location — about four miles south of Southern Boulevard — gave them an easy drive into Midtown, Hamilton adds.

“It was as far south from (the heart of) town as we wanted to go,” she explains.

The condo also is convenient to Lake Worth Beach, as Beach Point is near the bridge that connects Palm Beach to the mainland.

The couple had other requirements, as well.

“Jay wanted a first-floor apartment where he could just walk right out to the beach without going through the lobby,” she says.

And they needed a pet-friendly building for their golden retriever, Gracie. A ground floor unit made it easy “to let the dog out at night. Here, we feel like we have our own private yard, without having to take care of it.

“Of course, our new condo had to be the right size and the right price, but those parts were easy. The other parts were hard to find — walking right out to the beach and the yard.”

The condo has served them well, Hamilton says, but today their needs have changed: They are looking to move to Jupiter and back into a single-family home large enough for them to host their family on visits.

As such, they’ve listed their two-bedroom, two-bath condo — with 2,263 square feet of living space, inside and on the patio — with Douglas Elliman Real Estate agent Michelle Kirschner. It's priced at $2.385 million, and the furnishings are available separately. The unit will be sold with garage parking for one car, and an open parking space for another.

The condo is in the southernmost of Beach Point’s three buildings. The apartment’s foyer opens south to a great room that includes the dining area, living room, desk area and kitchen.

The bedroom suites are on either side. Hamilton and Ehrlich have furnished the guest bedroom as a den with a pull-out sofa.

In the apartment’s public spaces, walls of sliding doors fitted with impact-resistant glass open to the covered terrace and the lawn. From the living room area, the couple enjoys a view of the Atlantic, and they can see a slice of the ocean from each of the bedrooms. A laundry room completes the floor plan.

The condo was in move-in-ready condition when they bought it, but they eventually made changes to better suit their tastes.

“The bathrooms had been done pretty well, but the kitchen was very closed in and had not been addressed (much) by the previous owners,” Hamilton says. “And it had a Mexican tile floor, which wasn’t our favorite.

“The rest of the floors were Carrera marble, which my husband hated,” Hamilton adds.

So two years ago, they refigured the kitchen’s floorplan and took down a wall to open it up to the great room.

They also updated the kitchen with custom wood cabinets, quartz counters, a sea-glass-tile backsplash and stainless-steel appliances.

Other projects included redoing a bar in the dining room with new wood cabinetry and replacing the floors throughout with wide-plank wood.

They also installed a new electrical system when they redid the kitchen and put in new air conditioning.

With its own private beach access, Beach Point was developed in 1979 on an ocean-to-lake site. Each of the towers has seven floors with a grand total of 105 units. On-site recreation facilities include a fitness center, a card room, a tennis court and a pool with a whirlpool spa.

While Hamilton and Ehrlich are looking forward to their next chapter, they will miss their condo and the services it has offered them, Hamilton says.

“I’ll miss having everything done for me. That’s the part I love about condo life, and Beach Point has a fabulous doorman and porter. They take such good care of us and our condo when we are at our summer home in North Carolina.

“The services and the beach — we won’t be able to replicate those in a house,” she adds. “Gracie will miss the beach, as well as our new goldendoodle puppy, Lizzie. Whenever we take them to the beach, Gracie collects coconuts — there’s a pile of them on our terrace.”

To see more photos of Unit 105S at 2660 S. Ocean Blvd., click on the photo gallery at the top of this page.

For more than 20 years, Christine Davis has written about Palm Beach real estate in the "On the Market" feature in the Palm Beach Daily News.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach oceanfront condo with patio lists at about $2.4 million