TechCrunch founder buys waterfront Coral Gables home

The techies keep coming.

J. Michael Arrington, founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, paid $16 million for a waterfront home in Coral Gables, according to sources. Arrington purchased the property via a land trust.

Commercial broker Daniel Hughes, head of the retail firm Metro Commercial, sold the six-bedroom, seven-and-a-half-bathroom house on half an acre in Old Cutler Bay. The 7,518-square-foot home, designed by architect Cesar Molina, is near Fairchild Tropical Garden.

Arrington co-founded the tech blog TechCrunch in 2005, and sold it to AOL in 2010 for $25 million. Arrington, a major crypto investor, was ranked as one of the most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2008.

The Coral Gables sale marks a record for Old Cutler Bay, a high-end community near Gables Estates, according to One Sotheby’s International Realty. Jessica Adams of One Sotheby’s represented the seller. Matthew Elliot and Victor Olaniel, who were with Engel & Volkers at the time of the sale, represented the buyer. They recently joined Corcoran Group.

Elliot and Olaniel could not be reached for comment. Adams declined to comment.

The Coral Gables property includes a two-car garage, home theater and home office, gym, pool and summer kitchen, a dock, and a whole house generator. It hit the market in April for $16.5 million.

Daniel and Beth Hughes paid $10.4 million for the house in 2018. It was built in 2015, according to property records.

This month, singer-songwriter Marc Anthony sold his Bacardi-developed estate in the nearby Cocoplum community of Coral Gables for $22.4 million.

A number of tech investors have recently purchased high-end homes in South Florida, including Keith Rabois, Jon Oringer and Peter Thiel, all of whom bought homes in Miami Beach during the pandemic.

Most recently, Honey co-founder Ryan Hudson paid $15 million for a waterfront home on the Venetian Islands.