The former CEO of the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain has listed his Palm Beach oceanfront estate for $96 million.
Leonard Riggio’s contemporary-style house is among the most expensive single-family homes ever marketed for sale in the “multiple listing service,” records show.
The Riggios have longtime ties to New York. Leonard Riggio’s career as a bookseller began in 1965, according to an online biographical sketch. In 1971, he acquired the Barnes & Noble trade name and flagship bookstore in Manhattan, merging it with his own bookselling business, the company’s website says. He grew Barnes & Noble exponentially until it was billed as the world’s largest bookselling company.
Leonard Riggio is no longer with the company, according to a Barnes & Noble spokesperson told the Palm Beach Daily News in an email. Barnes & Noble today is owned by Elliott Advisors (UK) Ltd.
Riggio and his wife, Louise, bought the house on 1.68 acres in 2003 for $14 million and in 2009 expanded the property with the purchase of an adjacent parcel for $1.45 million, courthouse records show.
In May, Louise Riggio paid $8.1 million for a house in Wellington, the equestrian community in western Palm Beach County where the Riggios already had property, courthouse records show. The deed for that sale lists Louise Riggio’s mailing address as the couple’s Park Avenue co-op apartment in New York City.
Built in 1979, the house in Palm Beach has seven bedrooms and 11,042 square feet of living space, inside and out. The guest area spans two floors on the opposite side of the house.
The Riggios’ house has modular-style architecture. A one-story atrium at the front door connects the largest part of the residence — with the public rooms and a second-floor primary bedroom suite — on the south to the guest area on the north. That bedroom has an oceanfront balcony and adjoining sitting room. The second level also has a sun terrace overlooking the pool area.
The house stands three lots south of land once home to the estate of the late conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. That 2.65-acre estate sold privately for a recorded $155 million in March 2023 and was then razed by the buyer, a company controlled by Estée Lauder billionaire William Lauder.
The first floor of the main wing at the Riggio house has a living room, sunroom, dining room, a covered outdoor loggia, an outside dining courtyard and kitchen.
Riggio and his wife bought the house from retired automotive executive Stanley N. Gaines and his Republican Party activist wife, Gay Hart Gaines, who owned a house next door they sold for a recorded $41.5 million in 2012.
The Gaineses had nicknamed the estate they sold to the Riggios “Turtle Beach.”
Riggio’s Wellington purchase is a four-bedroom house built in 2003 on a half-acre lot, according to property records.
The Riggio family has had a long interest in equestrian sports, thoroughbred racing and related charities, according to published reports.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Former Barnes & Noble CEO lists Palm Beach oceanfront home at $96M
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