MAKING HISTORY IN MIAMI

Indian Creek Compound Fetches $47 Million In Miami's Most Expensive Sale Ever
By Morgan Brennan
Forbes August 7, 2012

Forbes has learned that 3 Indian Creek Island Road closed today for a record $47 million. It is now the most expensive home sale in the history of Miami-Dade County, eclipsing hedge fund billionaire Eddie Lampert’s nearby $38.4 million Indian Creek Island purchase earlier this year.

Several real estate teams were involved the deal, which was all cash. The home was co-listed with power broker team The Jills of Coldwell Banker Previews International and the Alexander Group of Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The buyer side was represented by the Alexander Group.

While the buyer’s identity remains anonymous, rumor has it he hails from Russia (the land of record-breaking billionaire home buyers) and is likely a member of the Forbes World’s Billionaires list. If that’s true, the new buyer will have some things in common with the new neighbors: Russian businessman Max Finskiy reportedly bought the plot next door earlier this year.

Indian Creek Island is an exclusive barrier island off the coast of Miami Beach. Unlike nearby celebrity enclaves like Star Island and Fisher Island, entrance to guard gated Indian Creek Island is granted only to home owners and their guests. The island touts an 18-hole golf course and 32 homes. Its privacy and security — the island is reportedly patrolled by 15 full-time policemen — has made it a popular address for billionaires that include Carl Icahn, Charles Johnson, Norman Braman and Eddie Lampert. Celebrities like singer Julio Iglesias and model Adriana Lima also own homes there.

3 Indian Creek occupies two acres, including a private beach comprised of imported Bahamian pink sand. The 10-bedroom, 14-bath compound boasts 30,000 square feet of living space constructed to feel like “a contemporary resort,” according to co-listing agent Oren Alexander, in a Forbes interview last year. Alexander’s father, Shlomi Alexander of Bal Bay Development, is the developer-seller of the property.

Built of limestone, glass and wood, the estate is comprised of five separate pavilions connected by walkways and water: a main pavilion, a guest pavilion, a spa pavilion, a gym pavilion and a media pavilion. The main pavilion houses a master suite and four additional bedrooms, a dining room, living room, library, wine cellar, and two kitchens. The guest pavilion has two bedroom suites with kitchenettes and a relaxation area with koi pond. The spa pavilion touts a massage room, chromotherapy, aromatherapy, and a steam room, and the gym pavilion boasts workout rooms with python skin-framed mirrors and a waterside yoga area. The media pavilion has a 3D projector and a professional-grade “floating” recording studio.

Other amenities include a 100-foot infinity-edge pool with underwater speakers, an outdoor dining room with built-in barbecue, a rooftop “sky bar” with jacuzzi, a vertical garden, and a “show room” with wet bar and TV lounge area capable of storing seven limo-sized cars.

Alexander says his team and The Jills had shown 3 Indian Creek to more than 50 qualified buyers since it first hit the market in late 2010. The original listing price was $60 million, later reducing to $52 million before selling for $47 million today.

“This sale sets the new standard for the Miami Beach luxury market,” says Jill Eber of The Jills, in a statement. “This property is a private resort that is a true work of art. There is the combination of amazing architecture, finishes and location. I wish we had 10 more properties like this one.”

Eber, whose team also represents the $125 million Versace Mansion, may get her wish. Having found success with this spec home project, Bal Bay Development already has plans to build two more modern resort-like homes: another on Indian Creek Island and one in Bal Harbour.

THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS!

The 15 most outrageous home sales of 2011
By Morgan Brennan
Forbes Dec 25, 2011

The U.S. housing market is still in the pits, closing another year marked by falling prices, lackluster sales volumes and a steady stream of foreclosures. For the rich and famous, though, it’s been a year of record-breaking purchases.

We sorted through the biggest, splashiest home sales of the year to bring you a recap of the 15 we deem the most outrageous.

One of the biggest purchases of the year just closed: an US$88-million penthouse condo in New York City’s billionaire-coveted 15 Central Park West. The 6,744-square-foot apartment, which hit the market in November, sold less than six weeks later to Ekaterina Rybolovleva, the 22-year old daughter of Russian billionaire Dmitriy Rybolovlev, reportedly for the full US$88-million asking price.

It is the highest individual transaction in Big Apple history and the second-largest transaction in the U.S. for 2011. Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Miller Samuel, a New York City-based real estate appraisal firm, explained to my colleague Luisa Kroll recently, “This sale is an outlier. It works out to be about $13,000 per square foot, the highest on record, for anything, that has ever occurred.”

The pricey pad belonged to former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill, who purchased it with his wife in 2007 for US$43.7-million — less than half of what it just sold for. The Weills plan to donate the proceeds to charity and Rybolovleva plans to reside there while attending university in the area. Despite Miller’s insistence that the gargantuan 15 CPW sale is an anomaly, there were two other pricey purchases in New York City this year, both for US$48-million apiece.

California’s real estate market welcomed several huge sales as well. The year’s largest individual transaction was the US$100-million purchase in March of a 25,500-square foot Silicon Valley mansion called Palo Alto Loire Chateau. Russian venture capital billionaire Yuri Milner reportedly plans to use the nine-figure compound as a secondary residence. The Levi Strauss estate, with its humble 2,050-square foot abode, in nearby Atherton sold to an unknown buyer for a hefty US$53-million in September.

The Spelling Manor, a Los Angeles manse formerly known as America’s most expensive home for sale, secured a buyer this summer after nearly three years on the market. The hulking 56,500-square foot Holmby Hills estate was listed for $150 million, and ultimately sold to yet another 22-year-old billionaire heiress, Petra Ecclestone, the daughter of Formula One founder Bernie Ecclestone, for a more reasonable US$85-million. Like Milner, Ecclestone has no plans to reside there full-time, and will split time between the palatial crash pad and one in London.

But while US$85-million may seem like an exorbitant sum to throw down on what essentially will be a pied a terre, David Kramer, the Hilton & Hyland agent who represented Ecclestone for her L.A. purchase, says the wealthy British family consider it a good investment. “If you say to someone who has billions of dollars, ‘Hey I’ll get you 43% off of a landmark home that in a good market really would be a US$100-million or more home, they will say let’s do it.”

Many real estate experts, Kramer and Miller included, chalk up increased interest in the home market among the big-money set to the same thing: perceived bargains. The weak dollar coupled with depreciated home prices (even at the high end) have translated into investment opportunities, particularly for rich foreigners looking to hedge fortunes in brick and mortar assets.

All of the headline-grabbing sales that have transpired this year have led to even more high-profile properties hitting the sale block. A plethora of trophy homes are available like Manhattan’s US$90-million Woolworth Mansion, Guess co-founder Armand Marciano’s US$63-million Beverly Hills compound, a US$60-million private resort in Indian Creek, Fla., and the less expensive but equally noteworthy US$12.5-million former Sinatra estate called Farralone. A US$175-million ranch in Jackson, Wyo. also came to market this year.

“I am seeing unique, special properties that no one ever would have thought would come on the market,” says Kramer. “These are properties that, like a piece of art, can and will never be duplicated. They can be considered part of people’s collections.”

South Florida’s luxury market has welcomed big spenders, too. Miami clocked four transactions priced at roughly US$20-million or higher this year. The most recent, the sale of the Setai South Beach’s palatial penthouse for US$21.5-million, is believed to be the highest price ever paid for a Miami Beach condo unit. The Thai-inspired apartment, which had belonged to Netscape founder Jim Clark, had been listed for $27 million. Another Russian billionaire, Roustam Tariko, coughed up US$25.5-million for a Star Island estate, the highest price paid in Miami since 2006.

“We have had an influx of rich people that have come to the city recently,” says Farid Moussalem, a ONE Sotheby’s International Realty agent who represented the buyer of Sunset Island’s Villa Tranquilla estate. The property was sold by American billionaire George Lindemann for US$19.8-million this summer, about 34% off the initial 2009 asking price of US$30-million. “I don’t think this is over; I think next year we will see more of these kinds of high-end sales,” says Moussalem.

Some ritzy residences didn’t find buyers this year until their asking prices were drastically cut. Oracle’s Larry Ellison, No. 3 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, picked up Porcupine Creek in Rancho Mirage, Calif., for US$42.9-million, 43% off the initial US$75-million asking price; fertilizer billionaire Alexander Rovt scooped up New York City’s Sloane Mansion an hour before its foreclosure auction for roughly US$33-million, or about 48% off the initial US$64-million ask price. Perhaps the biggest high-end discount sale of the year was Le Reve, a massive Versailles-like compound just north of Atlanta, Ga., that finally sold this summer for US$9.5-million. It had been originally listed at US$45-million.

Also making our roundup were two infamous foreclosures, both repossessed by lender Bank of America. Patricia Kluge’s Albemarle estate in Charlottesville, Va., once listed for US$100-million, was taken by the bank in February for US$15.26-million; and San Francisco’s St. Regis penthouse, once listed for US$70-million, earned the title of most expensive bank-owned property when it was sold back to the bank by former owner-developer Victor MacFarlane in lieu of foreclosure. That penthouse found a buyer just recently for US$28-million.