Wife of late aerospace exec sells Gables mansion for $23M to academic magnate

9 Tahiti Beach Island Road
9 Tahiti Beach Island Road

What does $23 million get you in Coral Gables nowadays? A palatial three-story home, your own private piece of beach and a landscaped garden, apparently.

The wife of a late aerospace executive has sold their sprawling Gables estate for $23.46 million to a trust affiliated with Yife Tien, the founder a for-profit medical college in Colorado.

Located at 9 Tahiti Beach Island Road, the seven-bedroom, six-bathroom home sits on a bayfront lot within the gated Cocoplum section of the Gables.

Its style is described by listing agent Judy Zeder of EWM as “Palladial,” with tall columns throughout the home, balconies for almost every room and numerous double-glass doors opening up to views of Biscayne Bay.

Zeder’s team first listed the property in April of this year with a $28 million ask, and a deal was shown to be pending in June. Despite the price chop, Zeder’s team said the sale marks a four-year record for single-family homes in Coral Gables, and also marks the second-priciest home to sell in Miami-Dade County so far this year. The most expensive was La Brisa in Coconut Grove that sold in June for $34.6 million

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The buyer is a trust in the name of Paul Tien, a Chinese-born immigrant to the U.S. who founded the for-profit medical college American University of the Caribbean.

Listed as trustees are his son, Yife, who also founded a for-profit medical college in Colorado called Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine, as is Dr. John Byrnes. No financing was recorded with the deal. Evan Weiss of 305 Degrees Realty brought the buyers.

The seller is Adrianne Mittentag, widow to the late Paul Mittentag who died in January of this year, according to an obituary.

He headed M&M Aerospace Hardware, a Miami-based provider of aircraft materials that was acquired by BE Aerospace for roughly $177 million in 2001, according to a report from the New York Times.

That same year, he and his wife built their massive Gables mansion. County records show the two had purchased the property four years earlier for $2.325 million. The seller at the time was an entity called the Inshallah Trust, which has been linked in previous published reports to the ultra-famous singer and actress Cher.