Top stories of 2016 in Wellington
Developer Mark Bellissimo now owns the three highest profile properties in Wellington after he bought the International Polo Club this year for $72 million from a trust associated with imprisoned founder John Goodman.
The CEO of Wellington Equestrian partners already owned the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center and Equestrian Village. Now he’s added polo and is gearing up for his first season.
But that wasn’t his only big purchase of the year.
Bellissimo and his investors also snagged the Wanderers Club from the Goodman family trust for $6.8 million. He said the private club has added about 100 more members.
IPC’s polo season will kick off on Sunday and the Winter Equestrian Festival starts Jan. 11. Walker and the two ran Woodside Farm in Wellington.
Reaching numbers that a local political consultant called “mind-boggling,” two wealthy Wellington residents set records for spending in a village election.
Billionaire Jeremy Jacobs and his family have battled Mark Bellissimo and his allies on growth in Wellington’s equestrian preserve for years. Bellissimo, who owns the three major properties, wants to build and Jacobs wants to preserve the green space that’s left.
Between the candidates that support their views and a referendum designed to ban hotels and apartments from the preserve, the two sides spent about $2.7 million combined.
Ultimately, both sides won a piece of the action. Bellissimo-backed challengers Anne Gerwig and Michael Drahos unseated the Jacobs-supported incumbents, and the hotel ban passed, essentially ensuring that hotels will stay out of the preserve for good.
The most recent of the big stories from the past year is the Winding Trails development that has been the most talked about proposal in recent memory.
Ward Real Estate bought the defunct Wanderers Executive Course in 2015, and proposed to build nine large-lot equestrian estates including barns, owner’s apartments and groom’s quarters.
But many of the neighbors are split on the proposal. Some think it’s a good low-density option for the land and others don’t want to live next to horses.
The village council must wrestle with issues like the long-term profitabilit y of golf courses, which are failing even in Palm Beach County — widely considered the golf capital of the country.
The council recently approved the development in the first of two votes. The proposal must now get state approval before coming back to the council in February.
It’s not every day that Wellington gets to host a prince.
Prince Harry stopped by in May to play in a polo match for his charity, Sentebale. Three teams, including some of the best polo players in the world, faced off in a round-robin format for bragging rights in front of the small crowd of Wellington’s elite.
It was Harry’s first visit to Wellington, but he wasn’t the first prince. His father, Prince Charles, came to the area often in the 1980s to play polo. It’s one of the first things that put Wellington on the map.
Sentebale specializes in helping children who have been affected by the AIDS and HIV epidemic.