Once upon a time, in the not so distant past, a single-family home or apartment selling for $100 million or more was little more than the pipe dream of billionaires and the high-powered real estate agents that service them. However, with the ultra-rich just getting richer and sitting on piles of money burning holes in their pockets, $100+ million dollar deals in some of the country’s premium zip codes have become increasingly, and some might say disconcertingly commonplace.
The trend, if it can rightly be called that, began back in 2013 when a Silicon Valley spread sold for $117.5 million, allegedly to billionaire SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son. The following year, in Greenwich, Conn., the historic Copper Beech Farm estate fetched $120 million — it was purchased by hedge fund fat cat Ray Dalio, and several months later an 18-acre oceanfront estate in East Hampton, N.Y., was sold to billionaire hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein for a staggering $147 million.
In 2019, property collecting hedge funder Ken Griffin dropped $238 million on a 23,000-square-foot penthouse atop New York’s 220 Central Park South, and last year Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg sold a six-acre spread in Beverly Hills to trophy property collecting WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum for a whopping $125 million, a titanic deal dwarfed earlier in the year when Jeff Bezos paid David Geffen a bone-rattling $165 million for the legendary Jack Warner Estate, also in Beverly Hills.
This year, several homes in Palm Beach, Fla., have traded at more than $100 million. They include a 30,000-square-foot spread with both ocean and Intracoastal Waterway access that went for $109.6 million and a 21,000-square-foot spec-built contemporary facing the Atlantic Ocean that hauled in $122.7 million.
Prolific south Florida developer Todd Michael Glaser and his partners, who include Miami developer Johnathan Fryd and Miami Beach developer Scott Robins, hope to join this club of rarefied whale sellers in Palm Beach with the announced listing of Tarpon Island, a Palm Beach estate that uniquely occupies its own private island. According to The Wall Street Journal, the first to report on the matter, buyers will have two options. They can opt to acquire the property as-is at $120 million or, after a massive overhaul and expansion, $200 million. Glaser told the WSJ that once the renovation is complete the asking price could go higher than $200 million.
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Image Credit: ToddMichaelGlaser.com Glaser et al. purchased Tarpon Island earlier this year from private investor William Toll and his wife, Eileen, for $85 million, the highest amount ever paid for a Palm Beach home with lake frontage but no additional ocean frontage. Accessible by private bridge, boat, seaplane or maybe even helicopter, the rectangular island lies just east of Everglades Island with roughly 1,300-feet of frontage on the Intracoastal Waterway. The existing home (above), a terra-cotta-colored traditional with Caribbean influences, was built in 1939 with five bedrooms in more than 12,300 square feet. The estate also currently includes vast, park-like lawns, a swimming pool with poolside guesthouse, a private dock and a lighted tennis court.
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Image Credit: ToddMichaelGlaser.com However, if the existing house isn’t big or lavish enough, Glaser told WSJ he and his partners have obtained the necessary approvals to expand the house to around 25,000 square feet. Plans and renderings by Dailey Janssen Architects show the conceived residence will have 11 and potentially 14 bedrooms — just three in the main house and the rest divided between several semi-detached guest wings, and a total of fifteen bathrooms plus another five powder rooms.
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Image Credit: ToddMichaelGlaser.com Other notable features include garaging for six cars, a great room that all by itself spans more than 1,200 square feet, an octagonal club room that opens to the tennis court, a hair salon, and a fitness/spa area. Each of the guest bedrooms has a private bathroom and one of them even has dual baths. The massive main bedroom also has two baths along with two giant walk-in closets, a morning bar, and a 40-plus-foot-long covered terrace.
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Image Credit: ToddMichaelGlaser.com Numerous and spacious verandas allow for easy-breezy outdoor living, at least when the oppressive humidity hasn’t kicked up, and plans call for the addition of two putting greens with sand traps plus a second swimming pool that stretches to 120 feet long.
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Image Credit: ToddMichaelGlaser.com Though not yet officially on the open market, Tarpon Island is being marketed by Lawrence A. Moens Associates.
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Image Credit: ToddMichaelGlaser.com Glaser, who often does deals with myriad partners, has a long and well-documented history buying, renovating, building and/or selling high end homes across south Florida: He once owned Cher’s former estate on La Gorce Island, he bought the historic Carl Fisher estate in Miami Beach in 2005 and began an extensive renovation but sold it before it was completed in 2008 to high-rise developer Ugo Columbo, and last year he paid $18.5 million for the Palm Beach home of late sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The Epstein home has already been razed to make way for a brand-new build, though it won’t be the futuristic midcentury-modern inspired villa Glaser and his partners originally envisioned for the waterfront property. In the meantime, the now vacant land is being offered at $29.95 million.
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Image Credit: ToddMichaelGlaser.com