Carolyn DiPaoloThe West Palm Beach property was sold to a developer in August.
The West Palm Beach redevelopment tidal wave has reached the midcentury bungalow that was the setting for the bestselling memoir “Marley and Me,” about the life-changing bond between a man and his dog.
Driving the news: A Boca Raton-based developer bought the three-bedroom, two-bath home at 345 Churchill Road in August.
- Mizner Development has relisted the address on Realtor.com as a new 5,000-square-foot, five-bedroom estate.
- Asking price: $4.8 million.
Why it matters: The house once owned by “Marley and Me” author John Grogan and his wife, Jenny Vogt, is a snapshot of 35 years of bust and boom in West Palm Beach’s white-hot south end neighborhood.
Flashback: The couple bought the home in 1990 for $105,000, according to property records.
They soon adopted a Labrador puppy, Marley, whose boundless energy and destructive tendencies inspired Grogan’s book.
The 2005 release spent 23 weeks at No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list and was made into a movie starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston.
(A similar house in Hollywood, Florida, was used as a location in the movie.)
After brushes with crime on Churchill Road detailed in Grogan’s memoir, the couple sold their house in 1995 for $111,000 and moved to Boca Raton.
The house went into foreclosure during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008-2010, and the bank purchased it back at auction for $168,000 in 2015.
- It quickly sold for $251,000.
- A handful of owners came and went before Mizner Development bought the property this year for nearly $1.4 million.
What they’re saying: “We were interested to hear the news about 345,” Grogan, who now lives in Pennsylvania, wrote in an email to Stet this month. “We’ve watched as bungalows keep falling to new development in all the eastern neighborhoods. I guess it was our old house’s turn.”
There was no answer last week or this week at the phone number listed on the Mizner Development website. An email to the developer’s mailbox bounced back. And the listing agent did not return a call from Stet News.
Context: 345 is one of three properties Mizner Development is reshaping in the 300 block of Churchill Road.
- One sold for $3.85 million, and the other is on the market for nearly $4 million.
“We loved that little house,” Grogan wrote. “I try not to be sentimental about these things, but I’m sad to see it go.”
Of note: Carolyn has a front-row seat to the real estate changes on Churchill Road, where she has lived for 23 years.
I am a co-founder, writer and editor for Stet News. I am also a former senior editor at The Palm Beach Post. For 20 years, I oversaw some of the most consequential stories published by the paper, including the “Corruption County” reporting project that led to multiple arrests of elected officials. I am a member of the Leadership Palm Beach County Class of 2013. I live in West Palm Beach with my husband, Bill DiPaolo.
