Palm Beach house wins design board’s OK 10 months after first review

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The Architectural Commission finally has approved, with conditions, a house Canadian Adrian Tauro wants to build on his North End property at 224 Via Marila.

• The Palm Beach Architectural Commission has given conditional approval to the design of a house sesonal resident Adrian Tauro plans to build on a lot at 224 Via Marila on the North End.
• The architectural style of the house changed twice after it was first proposed in September 2024.
• With streamlined tropical and traditional elements, the main house would have three bedrooms plus a one-bedroom guesthouse.

Palm Beach seasonal resident Adrian Tauro has gotten what he had been seeking for nearly a year — the approval of the town’s Architectural Commission for the design of a house he commissioned on the North End. 

At their most recent meeting, architectural commissioners greenlighted, with conditions, the house Tauro wants to build at 224 Via Marila on a lot of about three-quarters of an acre. The house’s clean-lined architecture would blend tropical and traditional influences with a cedar-shingle roof, a stucco exterior, coral-stone detailing and expansive windows. At the rear of the house, a poolside breezeway would connect the three-bedroom house to a one-bedroom guesthouse. 

The path to the approval Tauro earned at the July 23 meeting was rigorous and convoluted. The house had undergone two changes in architectural style since the original design failed to pass muster with the board in September 2024. It started out with Cape Dutch-style architecture before morphing into a Mediterranean villa — and, finally, into the tropical/traditional version that was just approved with about 7,000 square feet of living space, inside and out.

Before they voted 6-1 to endorse the project, several board members acknowledged that the design had been improved, although it still lacked a “wow” factor, as Commissioner Claudia Visconti put it. 

Commissioner K.T Catlin said the house still needed “little touches” to brighten it up and suggested that the design team choose a new color for the gray window shutters.  

“I kind of think that this house is what it is — it’s a very simple house,” Catlin acknowledged. 

Visconti and Catlin joined the consensus to finally move the project forward. But as part of their vote, commissioners stipulated that more changes must be made to the plans, taking into account their remarks during the meeting. Those included refining windows, doors and the front entrance, including the second-floor balcony above the porch. 

The changes won’t come back to the full board for review, commissioners decided. Instead, procedural rules will allow the revisions to be presented solely to Chairman Jeff Smith for review and approval. 

Smith did not attend the meeting, and commissioners Betsy Shiverick and Kenn Karakul also were absent. Alternate members Kathy Georgas, Sue Patterson and David Phoenix voted in their place. Commissioner Elisabeth Connaughton cast the sole vote against approving the project. 

Vice Chairman Richard Sammons, who ran the meeting in Smith’s absence, offered a number of suggestions he said would improve the project, including scaling down the front balcony, narrowing the arched element at the front door and varying some of the roof pitches. 

The house was designed to replace a 1960s-era Bermuda-style house that Tauro, a Canadian investment banker, bought for a recorded $9.5 million in April 2023.

Tauro has built and sold other houses in Palm Beach. The original Cape Dutch-style version of the house on Via Marila, in fact, was similar to a custom home Tauro had built and sold several years ago on Chilean Avenue near Town Hall. 

Although commissioners in September said they generally liked the original version’s architecture, they agreed that design was too tall and its prominent Dutch-style gables would be out of place on Via Marila, a street that runs several blocks north of the Palm Beach Country Club. They sent Toronto architect Jason Cutajar back to the drawing board for a complete restudy of the residence. 

When the house was re-presented to the board in December, its architecture had been changed to Mediterranean, and its roofline had been lowered. But commissioners once again deferred the project, asking for changes to the architectural detailing, finishes and materials.  

The project did not resurface until June — and by the time it returned to the board, Michael Perry of MP Design & Architecture of Palm Beach had taken over as lead designer for the project, although Cutajar remained involved, Perry told the Palm Beach Daily News. At the June meeting, Perry presented an initial version of the house that would finally win approval at the July 23 meeting. 

The iteration just approved turned out to be similar architecturally to the Dutch Colonial-style house Tauro had built and sold at 151 Chilean Avenue — but minus the Dutch-style gables, according to photos Perry presented at the most recent meeting of the board.

Tauro is based in Toronto. His professional resume includes tenure as a senior financial adviser with a private client group at ScotiaMcleod, part of Scotia Wealth Management, the investment arm of Scotiabank (the Bank of Nova Scotia). 

Tauro has owned property in Palm Beach since at least 2009 and has had previous experience with the town’s architectural review process, records show. In addition to the house on Chilean Avenue, he built and sold a custom home at 95 Middle Road for nearly $27 million in the Estate Section, according to property records. He also bought and sold at least three other residential properties in Palm Beach, including 402 Primavera Lane and 449 Australian Ave., both in Midtown and, most recently, a North End property at 221 Oleander Ave. 

Darrell Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column. He welcomes tips about real estate news on the island. Email dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com, call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.