Michael Olin Shakes Hands With Michael Hanzman

Well, the Herald comes late (as usual) to the long-awaited settlement of the epic struggle over the sale of the Bal Harbour Club:

Joseph Imbesi's Bal Harbour Club paid $90 million this week to cancel the sale of its valuable oceanfront home.

The settlement comes after nearly a decade of litigation over the six-acre site in one of Florida's most prestigious locales. A Canadian home builder signed a $36 million contract in 1995 to buy the land, then saw that deal start to unravel when Imbesi and partners took control of the club by purchasing all its membership interests.

A marathon court battle followed, one that preceded South Florida's historic real estate boom and just barely outlived it. Lawyers for both sides said the current depressed housing market complicated settlement talks, since it became harder to determine how much the prime locale was worth.

Still, real estate analyst Michael Cannon said the final payout makes the land some of South Florida's priciest.

''Ninety-million?! Holy [cow],'' said Cannon, whose real estate column appears in The Miami Herald.

Now maybe they can go back to golfing together at Westview and moving on to the next case they can work on for nearly a decade.