Financier Ara Cohen is linked to the seller’s side of a just-closed $15.5 million home sale at 254 Eden Road, records show. He’s also linked to a Palm Beach mansion across town.
Video: The 32nd Annual Worth Avenue Pet Parade and Costume Contest
Video: The 32nd Annual Worth Avenue Pet Parade and Costume Contest off Worth Avenue in Via Amore Saturday March 8, 2025.
- The remodeled, one-story house that just sold for $15.5 million at 234 Eden Road was built in 1990 and has 4,051 square feet of living space, inside and out, property records show.
- The related sale of a lakefront estate at 200 Via Palma near Mar-a-Lago closed for $51.63 million in December 2024.
- Ara Cohen co-founded Knighthead Capital Management LLC, an investments firm. He is linked to the sale of the Eden Road house and a mansion across town on Via Palma.
An investments specialist and hedge-fund manager who is linked to a lakefront mansion that changed hands last year — for more than $50 million near President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club —has parted with a smaller Palm Beach house across town on Eden Road, according to courthouse records.
Courthouse records link Ara Cohen to the seller’s side of the just-closed North End sale, which recorded at about $15.5 million for the five-bedroom house at 234 Eden Road. Property records also link Cohen to the mansion across town on Via Palma.
The 234 Eden Road Trust was on the buyer’s side of the Eden Road transaction, with estate and wealth-planning attorney Daniel R. Cooper serving as trustee. Cooper is a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Brockius LLP, a Philadelphia law firm. Because of privacy rules governing trusts, no other information about the buyer was immediately available in public records.
Across town in July, a limited liability company named Geats LLC paid a recorded $51.63 million for a nine-bedroom estate at 200 Via Palma, a few streets north of The Mar-a-Lago Club in the Estate Section.
After Geats LLC bought the Via Palma estate, that company leased the property for 99 years to Cohen and Sophie Stenbeck, property records show. Such a lease is often used as an estate-planning tool and can provide tax benefits to the owner, Palm Beach real estate attorneys have previously told the Palm Beach Daily News.
With 12,441 total square feet, the Via Palma house stands on nearly nine-tenths of an acre with about 140 feet of frontage on the Intracoastal Waterway.
On Eden Road
The remodeled, one-story house that just sold on Eden Road was built in 1990 and has 4,051 square feet of living space, inside and out, property records show. Its lot measures about a third of an acre and is the fourth one west of N. Ocean Boulevard, about a fifth of a mile north of the Palm Beach Country Club.
The house backs up to a service alley. The property was sold with deeded beach access on the other side of the coastal road. The house on Eden Road was sold through the Palm Tea Trust, which paid $9.22 million for it via a deed recorded in late December 2020, property records show. J. Christopher Clark served as trustee of that trust, according to the deed.
Cohen co-founded Knighthead Capital Management, LLC, and serves as co-portfolio manager of that investments firm, according to a brief online biographical sketch. Among its investment vehicles is the Evergreen Hedge Fund. Cohen has ties to New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut, public records show.
Agent Suzanne Frisbie of the Corcoran Group represented the seller’s interests in the Eden Road sale. She declined to comment about the sale.
Frisbie also represented the buyer’s side of the sale last year on Via Palma and at the time declined to discuss that transaction.
Broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate, who acted on behalf of the Eden Road buyer, also declined to comment about the sale.
Frisbie listed the Eden Road house in October at $18.95 million, and dropped the price to $17.9 million in January, according to records in the multiple listing service.
The house on Eden Road has Palm Beach Regency-style architecture, with a pediment over the entrance, shutters at the windows and classical columns on the front porch . The house was built by contractor Greg Giuliano, according to previous reporting by the Palm Beach Daily News.
The floorplan is laid out in an L-shape configuration, with the foyer and the main living space at the midway point. The living room has French doors and crown molding. The layout also includes a formal dining room that can double as a den, a kitchen with a breakfast area and a laundry room.
The ceilings throughout the house are 12-feet high. Above the attached two-car garage, a guest apartment has two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchenette.
Frisbie’s sales listing described the “resort-style” backyard — including a pool with a whirlpool spa, — that can be viewed from all the public rooms as well as the primary bedroom. The outdoor amenities include a fountain and a summer kitchen. The rear of the house has an attached pergola.
In the 2020 sale on Eden Road, agents Paulette Koch and Dana Koch of the Corcoran Group handled both sides. In that deal, the Cohen-linked trust bought the house from Pamela Cline Cline’s late husband was entrepreneur and businessman J. Michael Cline, whose career included founding the Fandango movie-ticket service.
Dana Koch declined to discuss the 2020 sale.
On Via Palma
The 1950s-era house leased by Cohen on Via Palma was completely rebuilt by Jeanne S. Siegel and her late husband, investor and businessman Herbert J. Siegel, who sold it to the Cohen-linked company. As part of that project, the Siegels changed the architectural style from Palm Beach Regency to Mediterranean.
The Via Palma house is in the security zone that closes to through-traffic when Trump is in residence at Mar-a-Lago.
Broker Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates represented Jeanne Siegel in the 2024 sale. Moens has declined to talked to the Palm Beach Daily News about the sale.
dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com
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(This story was updated to add new information.)
This is a developing story. Check back for any updates.
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Darrell Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column. He welcomes tips about real estate news on the island. Email dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com, call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz.