Pine Tree Drive estate once owned by a Miami Beach founding family to hit the market for $25M

A Miami Beach estate built and owned by the Collins family, one of the city’s founders, will hit the market for $24.95 million, listing agent Ralph Arias told The Real Deal. 

View looking east

Irving A. Collins, a son of Miami Beach founding father John Collins, built the mansion in the 1920’s, according to a building permit obtained by TRD. Russell Pancoast, a famous architect known for designing the Bass Museum among other properties, designed the home.

Property records show 5011 Pinetree Holdings Inc., an entity controlled by German L. Prieto, Jose Vazquez and Angele B. Espuny de Prieto, owns the 2-acre, nearly 14,000-square-foot mansion at 5011 Pine Tree Drive. Arias declined to comment on the owners’ identities, but said they want to sell the property because they’re spending less time there. The company paid $7.9 million for the house in 2004.

It’s on the market for about $1,665 per square foot for the home and $300 per square foot for the land.

The Mediterranean-style home is on a corner lot with nearly 600 feet of wraparound water frontage, a deep water yacht dock, a boat house and lighted tennis courts, Arias, of One Sotheby’s International Realty, said. Features like the boat house and lighted courts are grandfathered into the property, but can’t be built under the city’s current code. It also has two guest houses and a pool.

A buyer would likely restore and renovate the home, Arias said, similar to what developer Ugo Colombo did with his Carl Fisher estate on North Bay Road. The nearly $25 million price tag is “really competitively priced,” according to Arias. “Obviously, a buyer is going to have to spend some money renovating the home.”

John Collins, a farmer from New Jersey, moved to South Florida in the early 1900s. He had three sons, including Irving. Irving’s home was badly damaged in the “Great Miami” hurricane of 1926, according to the Biscayne Times. It was just north of his father’s avocado grove. And Pancoast, the home’s architect, was Irving Collins’ nephew, according to the Biscayne Times.

The property, which fronts the Intracoastal, neighbors a new home owned by developer Richard Meruelo, records show.

Just last week, spec home developer Barry Brodsky put the new mansion at 4567 Pine Tree Drive on the market for nearly $30 million. That house sits on a 1-acre lot. The Brodsky-developed home next door sold in February for $22.6 million.