STRIKING GOLD

At his Palm Beach estate,SYLVESTER STALLONE has laid-back glamour down to an art, blending the dazzle of a megawatt movie star with the intrinsic warmth of his tight-knit brood.

- WRITTEN BY RYAN D'AGOSTINO

THERE IS USUALLY A BASKET of flip-flops by the back door. When you wander outside—maybe down to the water, as this (amazingly) is the only house in all of Palm Beach that has a private beach—you can slide your toes into a mismatched pair and shuffle off with a good book and forget about the world for a while.

There are usually dog toys here and there: on the floor beneath the new Rashid Johnson triptych that hangs in the front hall; or under the 18-foot custom lacquer dining table the morning after a dinner party with the Hilfigers or Jon Bon Jovi and his wife; or wedged under an upholstered cardamom-colored chair in the elegant lounge, never to be seen again.

There are cups on the counter and feet on the coffee table. It's not that the house is ever messy, but there is movement. A life. A family. A home.

“We looked at some of the houses built after Covid, and they were monstrosities,” says Sylvester Stallone of the search that led to this house. “Monumental structures, but none of them embraced you or made you feel warm. You felt as though you were in a hotel lobby.”

Then he and his wife of 28 years, Jennifer Flavin, looked at the 2014 house that would become their primary residence two years ago, and thought, “Finally.” The high ceilings and big windows made it ideal for displaying paintings in natural light, but more importantly, it was what Flavin calls “a livable size.”