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Still in style: J.Crew head revealed as buyer of Calvin Klein’s $13M Miami Beach home
It turns out Calvin Klein’s home remains in fashion.
Records reveal the buyer of Klein’s $13 million waterfront North Bay Road house in Miami Beach is the head of J.Crew.
Millard S. Drexler and his wife Peggy Drexler, as trustee of the Drexler Family Revocable Trust, with an address in New York, paid $12.85 million for the home, according to property records. Millard “Mickey” Drexler is the chairman and CEO of J. Crew Group and was formerly the CEO of Gap. Peggy Drexler is a psychologist and author.
Klein first listed the home at 4452 North Bay Road in June of 2015 at $16 million. It was relisted in October 2016 at $15 million. The 5,800-square-foot home sits on a 16,709-square-foot lot and has 113 feet of open bay frontage.
On Wednesday, Douglas Elliman and Brown Harris Stevens Avatar said the home sold for $13.15 million, before the sale was recorded in Miami-Dade. The $300,000 difference in the recorded amount may be related to furnishings. At $13.15 million, the sale price equates to $2,267 per square foot.
Douglas Elliman Executive Vice President Pablo Alfaro had the listing, and Toni Schrager of Brown Harris Stevens Avatar brought the buyer.
Schrager had told The Real Deal that the new owner is from the United States, but had declined to provide specifics. She said the buyer, who was referred by a friend, plans to use the home as a vacation retreat.
“The buyer got a very, very good deal,” she said. “It’s just a really special house, a really beautiful, one-of-a-kind house.”
Built in 1929, the house has five bedrooms, five bathrooms, two half-baths, a pool and two garages. Indoor and outdoor living areas total 7,966 square feet, Douglas Elliman said. Designer Axel Vervoordt selected the furnishings and antiques.
Schrager said the home is designed “like a movie set.” She had said the buyer bought the furnishings, but declined to provide the price.
Klein paid an undisclosed amount for the property in December 2005, according to Miami-Dade County property records. Before that, it sold for $1.625 in November 1999.
Klein told Page Six in May 2015 that he wouldn’t sell to “just anyone.” “It may sound crazy, but I wouldn’t sell it to just anyone. It would break my heart. I hate to use the word ‘unique,’ but I have never seen another house like it . . . I want to sell it to someone who appreciates the aesthetic,” he told Page Six.
“He found a special buyer,” Schrager told TRD, “because I think these people are going to love and cherish this house as much as he did.”
Millard Drexler oversees a a company that operates 281 J.Crew retail stores, 113 Madewell stores, jcrew.com, jcrewfactory.com, the J.Crew catalog, madewell.com, the Madewell catalog, and 180 factory stores. The company reported a net loss of $24.6 million for the first nine months of fiscal 2017, on $1.7 billion in revenues, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Peggy Drexler has a Ph.D in psychology and is assistant professor of psychology in psychiatry, Weill Medical College at Cornell University. She is the author of “Our Fathers, Ourselves,” and “Raising Boys Without Men.”
North Bay Road has been home to celebrities such as Ricky Martin and Matt Damon. Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees and basketball star Chris Bosh also have waterfront homes there.
In the past two weeks, other high-priced homes have sold in Miami Beach at reduced prices: 212 West Dilido on the Venetian Islands, listed two years ago at $36 million, sold for $22 million. And 4555 Pine Tree Drive, a spec home listed a year ago for $34 million, sold for $22.575 million.