Tech Billionaire Jim Clark Lists Lavish Palm Beach Mansion for $137M

Published: September 3, 2016 | By: American Luxury Staff

Well before Google or Mozilla were founded, the title of “Internet Explorer alternative” belonged largely to Netscape, the company known for—aside from its aquamarine-tinged logo—the creation of JavaScript and the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Protocol. When the company went public in 1996, co-founder Jim Clark became a billionaire—a development that many consider the start of the late ‘90s Internet boom.

As you’d expect, Clark has built an impressive real estate portfolio since then, and he’s showing one of those properties off this week in hopes of unloading it. The asking price? $137 million, which makes it the most expensive listing in Palm Beach history.

The Renaissance-inspired mansion, known as ‘Il Palmetto,’ was designed in 1930 by the Swiss-born American architect Maurice Fatio. It sits on a 5-acre lot stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Worth and includes a 60,352-square-foot main residence designed as a string of pavilions connected by cloisters. A living room with 50-foot ceilings offers sunset vistas over the lake, while a formal dining room includes intricate carvings across the ceiling, stonework and even on pedestals between the arched windows.

Other perks include a soaring-ceilinged kitchen with a total of four separate islands, a 20,000 bottle wine cellar, a theater, a billiards room, an office, a library, an exercise room, a spa, two elevators and separate quarters for staff. Among the outdoor amenities are two swimming pools, a lily pool courtyard, a boathouse (beneath a second-story guesthouse with two bedrooms), formal gardens, terraced lawns, walkways, fountains, a koi pond and a launching pier.

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