Tear-downs aren’t unusual these days in build-it-now Palm Beach. But they still can grab headlines — especially when the mansion earmarked for demolition set a sales record nearly eight years ago when Donald Trump sold it for $95 million, the price recorded with the deed.

With his characteristic bravado, Trump was effusive back in 2005 when he talked about the mansion at 515 N. County Road, which he had scooped up the year before at a bankruptcy auction for about $41 million and then renovated for resale.

"It will be top of the line, with that ocean frontage, the ceiling heights and the skylights. By zoning, you could never build a house like that again in Palm Beach," Trump told the Palm Beach Daily News. "I bought the land and gutted the house."

> PHOTOS: Donald Trump's former estate at 515 N. County Road

Trump’s artful deal marked the biggest single residential sale ever on the island. With about 6.2 acres and 475 feet of beachfront, the estate today has 11 bedrooms and includes a separate pool pavilion, a two-bedroom guest house and a 1930s-era carriage house dating from the site’s original estate, Blythedunes.

In the 2005 story, Trump said the house — completed around 1990 — had been worth his investment. "The bones were that good," he said.

> Donald Trump in Palm Beach: News, photos and features

But when he was interviewed by the Daily News after he sold the house in July 2008, he described the property a little differently: "I always looked at it as a tear-down," he told the newspaper.

And that seems to be what’s come to pass, thanks to a decision last month by the Architectural Commission to green-light the house’s demolition. A report submitted to the board said the main house, pool house and tennis house are "overall in good repair," although the carriage house is not.

In any case, the house would be noteworthy as a tear-down even if it didn’t have a link to the Republican presidential forerunner. After all, it is barely 25 years old.

Demolishing a residence of that age isn’t unheard of in Palm Beach, but it is rare — especially when the property qualifies as a bona-fide mansion, as this one does.

The sprawling one-story "Euro-Regency"-style mansion has about 61,744 square feet of living space, inside and out, although its basement — measuring about 30,000 square feet — was left in a raw state when Trump sold it. There’s another 20,000 square feet in its outbuildings, according to property records.

The buyer in July 2008 was Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who reportedly has never lived there and last year saw the end of a contentious, and stratospherically expensive, divorce from his ex-wife Elena, the terms of which were undisclosed. Property records give no clue as to whether there was an internal ownership change as a result of the divorce or any other factor.

Rybolovlev used a limited liability company to buy the estate in an off-market deal. Agent Carol Digges of Brown Harris Stevens handled the buyer’s side of the sale opposite Trump’s broker, Lawrence Moens of Lawrence A. Moens Associates.

Subdividing long discussed

Just because the town has granted permission to demolish a house doesn’t mean, of course, that it will be torn down. Sometimes, an owner will request permission to raze a house to make it easier to sell a property with a permit already issued. In the same vein, a committed buyer may ask the seller to secure permission to speed the demolition process along, once the sale has closed.

Architectural commissioners, however, were told at their March 23 meeting that plans for a demolition of the North County Road house were definitely in the works.

And the fate of the property? It will likely will be subdivided and redeveloped, according to several sources familiar with the estate.

The idea of subdividing the property had been discussed even before Trump bought the estate, his only other major property acquisition on the island outside of landmarked Mar-a-Lago, where he runs his private club and has a residence. The property once reportedly comprised multiple lots and a cul-de-sac.

Luxury homebuilder Mark Pulte of Mark Timothy Inc. was among the bidders who lost to Trump during the 2004 auction. Shortly after the bidding closed, he told the Daily News that he had considered three options for the property, had he ended up owning it. "I’d resell it to Donald Trump to use as Mar-a-Lago II; tear it down and make two lots; or see what I could do with the existing house," he said.

Digges, who represented Rybolovlev in 2008, said Friday her client never discussed subdividing the property with her.

"We weren’t interested in subdivision. My buyer was interested in the entire property, so it never came up," Digges said, adding that she hasn’t "had any contact with the buyer since the sale."

Back in 2008, Rybolovlev was undecided whether he would keep the house or replace it with another mansion, she had told a Daily News reporter.

Moens couldn’t be reached to discuss the property or the 2008 deal.

Making way for what?

In informal conversations, several Palm Beach real estate brokers last week said they had already crunched the numbers, based on the owner wanting to recoup, at the very least, the recorded $95 million that changed hands in 2008 — a figure that Trump has always maintained was $5 million higher. If the property were sold for redevelopment on speculation, three lots would be the most logical scenario — but the costs would still be steep.

"If one paid $200,000 per lineal foot for the dirt — a record — then a 150-foot-wide lot would trade at $30 million," said one broker, who didn’t want to be identified. "Most developers would construct a home that would cost them – all in, with interest, commissions, architecture, etc. — at least $20 million. And they would expect a profit for the risk and time of $10 million. This would equate to a $65 million asking price — but I suspect it would be even higher, like $70 (million) or $80 million, leaving ample room to negotiate."

The same broker added: "If the lot were (sold for) $50 million — meaning the site was split in two — then I’d expect a $25 million home to be built (at cost), and the eventual (asking price) would be $90 million to $100 million. That’s ‘rare air’ in terms of past Palm Beach sales."

And, of course, the property could be divided into two pieces that aren’t of equal size, with one house on the smaller portion and a larger one on the other.

Whether the property will be subdivided or not, there’s no word yet on when the bulldozers will arrive. As of late last week, no application for a demolition permit had been filed at Town Hall.

Selling points

Before he sold it, Trump’s renovation was said to have cost $25 million, although the real estate mogul and seasonal Palm Beacher has denied he spent that much. Even if he did, Trump still would have seen a profit: He paid $41.4 million for the estate in November 2004 in a court-sanctioned auction related to the bankruptcy of the late health-care pioneer Abe Gosman.

"Everybody loves what we’ve done to the house," Trump told the Daily News in late November 2005, two months before his sales campaign for the estate was to begin in earnest.

Trump’s renovation was overseen by Kendra Todd, who in 2005 won the third season of "The Apprentice," the NBC reality show that capitalized on Trump’s bravado and business acumen, as well as his ability to fire people with a flourish.

Todd was a real estate agent in Boynton Beach when she claimed victory on Trump’s show. As her reward, he put her in charge of the mansion, which was ultimately marketed at $125 million, a record asking price at the time.

After Trump’s renovation, publicity for the house touted the 24-karat gold fixtures in the bathrooms, 20-foot ceilings with skylights and a 4,100-square-foot, half-moon-shaped oceanfront conservatory with old Chicago brick flooring accented with oak inlays. Flooring elsewhere was described as blond and brown onyx and noir and vert granite.

Also on the amenity list? A ballroom, a media room, a formal art gallery, a 100-by-40-foot pool and parking for 40 cars.

The late Palm Beach architect Eugene Lawrence designed the renovation, which added a new master suite on the south end of the main level. Described at the time as being of "home-away-from-home size," the master suite is complemented by eight other bedroom suites in the main house.

The property was initially marketed by Prudential Douglas Elliman of New York and agents Paulette Koch and Dana Koch of the Corcoran Group in Palm Beach. Later, the listing transferred to Sotheby’s International Realty agent Cris Condon in Palm Beach, but a buyer never materialized.

By the time Moens and Digges inked the final deal, the Great Recession that would slam the breaks on the island’s real estate market was still five months away. But in his July 2008 interview with the Daily News, Trump put the record-setting sale in perspective by mentioning the economic downturn already being felt nationwide. "It’s good because of the times," he said of the transaction.

In the same interview, Trump said he wasn’t sure whether his Russian buyer planned to actually live in the house. "I’d imagine it’d be for a home but I don’t know, other than I know he made a great deal. I think time will prove that out," Trump said.

And had the deal not gone through? Trump had a backup plan: "I’d be very serious about building a world-class hotel (on the property)," he said a couple of months before the transaction closed. "I know our Palm Beach fathers are thrilled about that."

Previous owners

Gosman had bought the mansion, unfinished, in 1988 from retail mogul Leslie Wexner for a recorded $12 million. Wexner had razed historic Blythedunes, which dated to 1917 and was later expanded.

Wexner, who at the time was CEO of The Limited, bought Blythedunes from its longtime owner, socialite and art collector Jayne Wrightsman, in 1985 for a recorded $10 million. She and her husband, Charles, had acquired the estate in 1947.

When the town refused to allow Wexner to open a location of The Limited on Worth Avenue, a reportedly irked Wexner decided not to finish construction on his new house and sold the property to Gosman, who completed the project.

When Trump bought it, the estate was known as Maison de L’Amitie — a "House of Friendship" that is likely coming to an end.