NBA’s J.J. Barea and Miss Universe Puerto Rico sell North Miami home

Former basketball star J.J. Barea and his wife, former Miss Universe Puerto Rico Viviana Ortiz, sold their waterfront North Miami home.

Records show Barea and Ortiz sold the house on Ortega Lane to Andrea Lisbona and Ruggero Grammatico for $5 million. They founded the hand sanitizer brand Touchland, an upscale hand sanitizer brand that sells at beauty retailer Sephora.

Samuel Hernandez of Lifestyle International Realty had the listing, and Liz Gonzalez of Onepath Realty brought the buyers.

Barea joined the Dallas Mavericks in 2006, and was only the seventh Puerto Rican to play in the National Basketball Association. He played for the Mavericks until 2011, and won the NBA Championship with the team that year. Then he moved to the Minnesota Timberwolves for three years, after which he returned to the Mavericks to play from 2014 to 2020. He has since left the league and is now coaching the Puerto Rican team Mets de Guaynabo.

He married Ortiz in 2016. She is an actress, model and former beauty pageant winner. She was crowned Miss Universe Puerto Rico in 2011.

The couple bought the waterfront North Miami home for $2.8 million in 2021, records show. Built that year on 0.2 acres, the home spans 3,500 square feet, with five bedrooms, five bathrooms, one half-bathroom, a pool and a 60-foot dock, according to property records and the listing.

Many current and retired professional athletes call South Florida home, including the legendary Michael Jordan. This month, Jordan bought a second home in the gated Jupiter community, the Bear’s Club, for $16.5 million. His primary estate in the Bear’s Club is a sprawling 3-acre compound with a 28,000-square-foot mansion that includes a guard house, guest house, basketball court and library.

Last month, football star Jason Pierre-Paul sold his Boca Raton mansion for $11.9 million. Another basketball player, Dion Waiters, sold his Pinecrest estate for $11.1 million in March.