French buyer pays $13.2M for new Venetian Islands home

306 West San Marino Drive. Inset: Jim Agard, who represented the buyer, and listing broker Dora Puig
306 West San Marino Drive. Inset: Jim Agard, who represented the buyer, and listing broker Dora Puig

A French buyer paid $13.2 million for a newly built home on the Venetian Islands, The Real Deal has learned. 

The deal, which went under contract during Art Basel last year, marks the most expensive home to sell in the Venetian Islands in 2016, listing broker Dora Puig of Luxe Living Realty told TRD. It closed on Tuesday.

Records show 306 West San Marino LLC sold the 7,076-square-foot home at 306 West San Marino Drive. Puig declined to comment on the seller, but public records show it’s tied to New York hedge fund Owl Creek Asset Management. Jim Agard of Barnes International represented the buyer, whom he declined to identify. The sale has not yet cleared county records.

The tropical modern house has been on the market since January 2015, but was completed during the summer of 2016. Max Strang designed the six-bedroom, six-bathroom house with white oak wood floors, a sliding door system, a teak wood kitchen, white marble countertops, Miele appliances and a summer kitchen with ipe wood and travertine marble, according to the listing. Fort Lauderdale-based Deborah Houston designed the interiors, Puig said. It was last on the market for just under $15 million.

Agard said his firm specializes in representing European clients with a focus on France, Switzerland and Belgium, and that he’s finding more Europeans have been investing in Miami over the last six months because of political and economic instability abroad.

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His buyer “was very focused on this neighborhood” when looking for a second home, Agard told TRD.

It sold for $1,865 per square foot. The house sits on a 10,500-square-foot lot with 60 feet of waterfront on the open bay.

Puig said the inventory for high-end, move-in ready modern homes is limited in the Venetian Islands, and that up to 60 percent of the modern houses on the islands are by owners looking to keep their properties for personal use.

“Nothing on the Venetians sold for over $10 million [last year]. This tells you the Venetians are still hot,” Puig said. “It was getting a lot of attention because it’s a modern house and this is the kind of architecture that’s selling in Miami Beach.”

Check out more photos of the property: