Cornelia ‘Cornie’ Thornburgh and her husband, Richard, have sold their renovated lakefront mansion and guest house on Everglades Island in the Intracoastal Waterway, the Palm Beach Post reported.The house at 550 Island Drive was listed at $24.9 million, according to the multiple listing service. The deed, recorded on Jan. 10, 2025, shows a price of $25.4 million. The buyer is 260N Property Limited Partnership, which is registered in Manitoba and uses a mailing address at an office building in Toronto.
Buyer already has land across town
The buyer is not new to Palm Beach. It owns a four-bedroom house at 260 N. Woods Road in the North End. It paid about $6.28 million for the 1977 house in September 2020. In March 2022, it added the empty lot next door at 254 N. Woods Road for $9.25 million. That lot is about a third of an acre.The house and lot are now on the market together for $22.9 million, the listing service shows. Agent Jim McCann of Premier Estate Properties holds that listing. He also represented the buyer in the Island Drive deal.The Island Drive estate did not sell quickly. The agents, Liza Pulitzer and Whitney McGurk of Brown Harris Stevens, first listed it in April 2023 at $39 million. After several price cuts, its final price landed about $13.6 million below that first asking price.
The Thornburghs bought for $9 million
Built in 1955, the mansion sits on about half an acre, with 150 feet of frontage on the canal that separates the island from the Everglades Golf Course. The Thornburghs bought the property in 2014 for $9 million. They felt the mansion needed a gut renovation. “This house was dated and a bit of a wreck. We saw that it was a project, but we also knew it was a special place,” Cornie Thornburgh told the Palm Beach Daily News in 2023.The couple hired architect Jacqueline Albarran of SKA Architect+Planners. Contractor Tim Givens of Tim Givens Building & Remodeling Inc. ran the work. The team changed the layout of the main house a great deal but kept the focus on the water views and the thick mangroves along the golf course. “Not one thing went untouched,” Thornburgh said in the same interview.
Inside the renovated mansion
The Thornburghs went for a massive renovation. The main house now has five bedrooms, four of them on the ground floor, along with a den and access to a two-car garage. The living and dining rooms open to a poolside lanai. The main suite is upstairs and has a balcony facing the gorgeous water.Wide-plank hardwood floors run through the rooms. The vaulted ceilings in limed wood are another highlight. The mansion also has gas fireplaces in the living room and lanai, setting the tone. The kitchen has custom cabinets and high-end appliances. A two-bedroom guest house and cabana building also sit nearby. After the renovations, the couple named the property Pelican Strait. The Palm Beach couple were keen on hosting parties, and their entertaining space can host about 100 people. “We have had parties here for 100 people, and now the house flows well. In so many big houses, you ramble around, but this house is cosy and comfortable when there’s no kids around and it’s just the two of us,” the couple said.The Thornburghs had to downsize, so they moved to a 1920s bungalow at 159 Australian Ave., just east of the police headquarters near Town Hall. They bought the historic home in 2023 from Amy Tarrant for $8.12 million. The 4,436-square-foot home has five bedrooms. The town gave it landmark protection in 2013, and earlier owners won an award from the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach for restoring it. Elizabeth Woody of Compass Florida represented both sides of that sale.Prior to owning the mansion on Island Drive, the couple owned another landmarked house, a 1923 villa on Golfview Road. Richard Thornburgh, a senior adviser at private-equity firm Corsair Capital LLC, also has ties to New York, but the latest tax rolls list the Island Drive house as their main home.The estate is the seventh house north of the short bridge that links Everglades Island to the rest of town through Island Road. The island runs three-quarters of a mile along the Intracoastal Waterway, in the town’s Estate Section.