In April 2026, the oceanfront house at 11800 Turtle Beach Road in Lost Tree Village came to market at $35 million. It is a 1992 house of about 6,800 square feet on a lot of nearly one acre, with 128 feet of water frontage. The trustees for the late businessman Dana Hamel, who had bought the property for $2.5 million in 1991, sold it in late August for $27.5 million, The Real Deal reported. That is about 21 percent below the asking price. According to a person familiar with the deal, the buyer plans to tear the house down and rebuild.
In TRD's daily deals roundup for August 26, 2026, the property was the most expensive home sale to hit the records that day, and the roundup describes it as oceanfront. It still sold for half of what the Lost Tree record had reached fifteen months earlier. Taken on its own, the sale looks like a soft spot. Next to the two oceanfront sales before it, it shows how this market prices land and how it prices a finished house.
The Same Acre, Priced Two Ways
Lost Tree Village covers 450 acres behind its gates, with a private oceanfront and a golf course. Three oceanfront sales since early 2025 make the clearest comparison, because the lots are similar in size and the houses on them are in very different states.
| Address | Sale | Lot | Ocean frontage | Condition at sale | Price per acre |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11432 Turtle Beach Road | $31.9M, Feb. 2025 | 0.8 acre | Not reported | Built 1971; kitchen, baths and pool remodeled in 2022 | About $40M |
| 12032 East End | $55M, May 2025 | 1.4 acres | 103 feet | Built 1992; compound renovated in 2022 | About $39M |
| 11800 Turtle Beach Road | $27.5M, Aug. 2026 | About 1 acre | 128 feet | Built 1992; bought to tear down | About $28M |
The two lived-in houses landed almost exactly together, at roughly $39 million to $40 million an acre, even though one was a 1971 house with a recent remodel and the other a 10,500-square-foot compound with a gym, a wine room and a six-car garage. The teardown came in around $28 million an acre. Frontage tells the same story. The East End estate sold for about $534,000 per foot of ocean frontage. The Turtle Beach Road site sold for about $215,000 per foot, even though it has 25 more feet of water.
So at the top of Lost Tree, buyers pay for a house they can move into. The site value is the floor. A finished house, whether lavish or simply updated, adds something like $12 million an acre on top of that floor.
What Roughly $12 Million an Acre Pays For
The buyer of 11800 Turtle Beach Road bought land plus the job of closing that gap, which will take years and a great deal of money. The discount covers costs that the buyer of a finished house never sees:
- Permitting before anything moves. The Village of North Palm Beach requires a permit for demolition, and the permit has to be issued before work begins. Buyers should confirm with the Village which jurisdiction and approvals apply to their particular address, and also check the community's own review process.
- Carrying costs on a property nobody can live in. Community charges keep running through design and construction. TRD reports annual HOA fees of $6,624 in Lost Tree Village.
- Construction cost and risk. The house that eventually goes up will cost whatever building costs then. The buyer carries that risk, and the buyer of a finished compound does not.
- Lost seasons. A finished house is in use the winter after closing. A rebuild means one or more seasons away from the water the buyer has just paid for.
Each of these costs gets priced in at closing. This shows up in the asking price history of both recent records. The East End estate was listed at $60 million in April 2025 and sold for $55 million. The 11432 Turtle Beach Road house was listed at $39.5 million and sold for $31.9 million. Every one of these properties sold below its asking price. The sales differ in how much of the price was for a house that was already built.
A Record Year for the County, and a Discount on the Site
The teardown discount did not happen in a soft market. On October 16, 2026, Miami Realtors, RWorld and BeachesMLS released their September statistics. Through September 2026, Palm Beach County recorded 21 single-family and condominium sales of $30 million or more, tying the county's total for all of 2025. The release projects 28 such sales by year-end. The same release counted 179 sales of $10 million and up between January 1 and October 14, 2026, the most in any calendar year in county history.
Lost Tree's oceanfront has been climbing through this cycle. A one-acre oceanfront estate set the community record at $25 million in 2023. The 11432 Turtle Beach Road sale passed it at $31.9 million in February 2025, and that house had sold for $22 million in 2022. Three months later, the East End compound reached $55 million, and its seller had paid $32 million for it in 2024.
The site sale fits with that climb. In the strongest top-tier year the county has recorded, the price gap between raw land and a finished house did not close. When the people willing to pay the most are mostly looking for finished houses, the market rewards finished houses most. A site that needs years of work sells to a smaller group of buyers who are willing to wait.
That has practical consequences for both sides of a transaction. An owner of an older oceanfront house can't assume the community record applies to them. Their likely price depends on whether a buyer would live in the house or demolish it. A buyer looking at a recent record should ask what share of that price was for the land.
Away From the Water, a Separate Ladder
Lost Tree's non-oceanfront sales run on their own track, and they have climbed steeply too. In August 2026, a 5,000-square-foot house at 11330 Golfview Lane sold for $13 million, or about $2,600 per square foot. Property records dated August 20 show the sellers had paid $3.1 million for it in 2019. That is more than four times the 2019 price in about seven years. In May 2025, a non-waterfront house in the community sold for $8.2 million. Earlier, in mid-2024, a non-waterfront house sold for $12.9 million and a house on the golf course for $18.8 million.
For comparison, the oceanfront teardown sold for just over $4,000 per square foot of a house the buyer plans to remove. For an oceanfront teardown, a per-square-foot figure measures only the land. For the Golfview Lane sale, it measures the house and its setting together. If a buyer compares Lost Tree properties on price per square foot without separating those two cases, the comparison will mislead.
Questions Buyers Ask
Does buying a house in Lost Tree Village come with membership in Lost Tree Club? Club membership is separate from the property owners' association and is handled by application, and club charges are separate from the community assessment. Terms can change, so confirm current membership categories and costs directly with Lost Tree Club and the property owners' association before setting a budget.
Is the oceanfront record a fair benchmark for an older oceanfront house? Only if the next buyer would live in the house. The 2025 oceanfront sales were both for houses with 2022 work behind them. The August 2026 site sale shows what the same frontage brings when the buyer intends to rebuild.
Who has been active at the top of the community? The Real Deal reported that all four headline sales above went to a trust or an LLC: the three oceanfront sales and the Golfview Lane sale.
The details above on permits, assessments and club membership are general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Please confirm your own situation with your attorney, accountant or other advisors.
If you own an older oceanfront house in Lost Tree, or you're weighing a site against a finished estate, the useful first step is working out what share of the price is for the land and what share is for the house. At Palm Beach Luxury Portfolio Group, we do that analysis quietly, address by address, before any number goes to market. Let's Start a Conversation.
