The widow of one of America's richest, publishing heir Randolph Hearst, saw her 52-room mansion on Manalapan's beach sold along with 70 other properties in a foreclosure auction today in a Palm Beach County courthouse in West Palm Beach.
The 28,000-square-foot Villa Venezia, owned by Veronica Hearst and once listed for $27 million through a Realtor, went for $22 million within five minutes of being put to bids for $100.
The buyer is New Stream Capital, the plaintiff in the foreclosure action. It lent over the past two years slightly more than $40 million to Veronica Hearst, stepmom to famous kidnap victim Patty Hearst.
Incidentally, golf great Greg Norman was lurking at the back of the intimate crowd during the sale but didn't bid.
"I'm just an interested bystander," Norman said. He was later seen huddling with New Stream lawyers.
The freshly divorced Norman recently moved to the chi-chi inland LeLac neighborhood of Boca Raton. He and fiancee Chris Evert, the 1970s tennis icon who lives near LeLac, are planning a summer wedding. He is said to be shopping for oceanfront properties in the Boca-Delray-Manalapan area.
Eight individuals or corporations placed bids on Hearst's mansion, meanwhile.
The most interested seemed to be North Palm Beach developer Drennen Whitmire, who owns South Ocean Capital. He went neck-and-neck with New Stream, bidding $14.5 million before giving up at $22 million.
Hearst's lawyer, Al LaSorte, said the widow had been preparing to wire $20 million-plus to her mortgage holder this morning to stop the sale. But when LaSorte saw there were eight interested parties, he says he and New Stream lawyers agreed New Stream would buy the house then sell it privately.
"The higher the sale, the more credit my client will get for what she owes them," the West Palm Beach-based LaSorte said. "There were already some pretty good offers, but now we'll take advantage of the interest the auction generated to get more. Mr. Norman seemed very interested to me."
Will Veronica Hearst end up being homeless?
Her 52-room mansion near Palm Beach, Fla, will be auctioned off on Monday so her creditor, New Stream Secured Capital, can recoup its mortgages to her of more than $40 million.
But Hearst, widow of Randolph, stepmother of Patty and mother of socialite Fabiola Beracasa, also put up her Fifth Ave. apartment as collateral, as well as her 45-acre lakeside estate in New Castle, N.Y.
If bids on Villa Venezia, the 28,000-square-foot former Vanderbilt mansion, don't reach $40 mil, New Stream will have to auction those homes, the attorney for the company confirms.
"Once we fix the amount on this property," said Alan Grunspan of the respected Carlton Fields law firm, "any deficiency will have to be sought against her other properties."
That may make her neighbors in New Castle happy — they fought with her for years when she didn't want the public to be allowed to swim next to her property. But fellow residents of her Manhattan building, like Ace Greenberg, may not be happy. It's a co-op, and Hearst didn't get the board's permission to pledge it.
Hearst also mortgaged her art collection, and a source says she has sold the chandelier out of the main hall of Villa Venezia. "And she's been selling her books right off the shelves, including one personally autographed to her by Diane von Furstenberg," the source attests.
Since only blood relations can inherit the family fortune built by William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper mogul immortalized by Orson Welles in "Citizen Kan," Veronica can't touch the trust, which is said to be worth billions. But Randolph left her well taken care of, and the question is, where did it go?
"She was a champion spender," says a source close to the situation. "She would hop on a private jet like some people would hail a taxi downtown. She was always going off to the shows in Europe. She was a huge couture client of Galliano's. She had a string of pearls said to be worth a million dollars, which she hasn't been wearing lately.
"She'd buy $100,000, $150,000 tables at benefit galas. She was husband-hunting."
Hearst's lawyer Matthew Chait, of the top law firm Shutts & Bowen, would not comment on his client's spending habits.
Her 52-room mansion near Palm Beach, Fla, will be auctioned off on Monday so her creditor, New Stream Secured Capital, can recoup its mortgages to her of more than $40 million.
But Hearst, widow of Randolph, stepmother of Patty and mother of socialite Fabiola Beracasa, also put up her Fifth Ave. apartment as collateral, as well as her 45-acre lakeside estate in New Castle, N.Y.
If bids on Villa Venezia, the 28,000-square-foot former Vanderbilt mansion, don't reach $40 mil, New Stream will have to auction those homes, the attorney for the company confirms.
"Once we fix the amount on this property," said Alan Grunspan of the respected Carlton Fields law firm, "any deficiency will have to be sought against her other properties."
That may make her neighbors in New Castle happy — they fought with her for years when she didn't want the public to be allowed to swim next to her property. But fellow residents of her Manhattan building, like Ace Greenberg, may not be happy. It's a co-op, and Hearst didn't get the board's permission to pledge it.
Hearst also mortgaged her art collection, and a source says she has sold the chandelier out of the main hall of Villa Venezia. "And she's been selling her books right off the shelves, including one personally autographed to her by Diane von Furstenberg," the source attests.
Since only blood relations can inherit the family fortune built by William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper mogul immortalized by Orson Welles in "Citizen Kan," Veronica can't touch the trust, which is said to be worth billions. But Randolph left her well taken care of, and the question is, where did it go?
"She was a champion spender," says a source close to the situation. "She would hop on a private jet like some people would hail a taxi downtown. She was always going off to the shows in Europe. She was a huge couture client of Galliano's. She had a string of pearls said to be worth a million dollars, which she hasn't been wearing lately.
"She'd buy $100,000, $150,000 tables at benefit galas. She was husband-hunting."
Hearst's lawyer Matthew Chait, of the top law firm Shutts & Bowen, would not comment on his client's spending habits.
