Indian Creek vacant lot sells for a whopping $23M

A vacant lot on Indian Creek Island has sold for $23 million, marking the highest price ever paid for vacant land in the exclusive enclave.

A foreign buyer purchased the nearly two-acre site at 2 Indian Creek Island Road for cash, said Jill Eber of the Jills, who represented the seller, along with her partner Jill Hertzberg.

The Jills, with Coldwell Banker in Miami Beach, had listed the property at $26 million for the seller, a South American who had bought the property for $14.5 million in April 2014. That seller has now reaped a 59 percent profit in less than three years. The Jills declined to disclose the identities of either the buyer or seller.

“It’s a magnificent lot on an incredible island,” Hertzberg told The Real Deal. Next door, at 3 Indian Creek Island Road, the Jills achieved a record sale in the county in 2012: a Russian billionaire paid $47 million for a nearly 30,000-square-foot, 13-bedroom, 14 bathroom and two-half-bath estate. That mansion’s 80,000-square-foot lot — the same size as 2 Indian Creek — had sold to a developer for $10.3 million in 2007.

“The property values on that island have been going up and up and up and up,” Hertzberg said.

Veronica Cervera Goeseke, CEO of Cervera Real Estate, represented the new buyer of 2 Indian Creek, along with her son Nickel M. Goeseke. She said the family intends to build a home to live on the island.

“My son and I were showing them Miami, and we just thought that Indian Creek was ideal for them,” Cervera Goeseke told TRD. After seeing the island and the lifestyle it affords, they agreed, she said.

The property comes with a large dock, which was a strong selling point, Eber said.

Indian Creek is a private playground for the ultra-wealthy, with just about three dozen homes, each with waterfront views on lots in excess of an acre. Among its residents are some of America’s 500 wealthiest people, according to Forbes, including activist investor Carl Icahn, car dealership mogul Norman Braman and hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert. Still other residents include singer Julio Iglesias, retired Dolphins coach Don Shula, Colombian banker Jaime Galinski, Turnberry Associates co-CEOs Jackie Soffer and brother Jeffrey Soffer and Spanish-language TV personality “Don Francisco,” whose real name is Mario Kreutzberger.

“It is absolutely stunning to be on Indian Creek, which is so exclusive, and to be able to have 200 feet on the wide bay facing west, with the most amazing sunsets,” Eber said. “And on the other side, a magnificent, 18-hole golf course. It’s just very special.”