Former Miss Universe, Venezuelan politician picks up Coral Gables home

It looks like former Miss Universe and Venezuelan politician Irene Sáez found a new home in Coral Gables.

Property records show a company tied to Sáez’s husband, Serafín García, paid $7 million for the waterfront house at 491 Arvida Parkway. Bidu Properties, controlled by Garcia, bought the five-bedroom, 5,178-square-foot home from Gabriel Politzer and Evelyn Weissman De Politzer. Gabriel Politzer is head of asset management and chief strategy officer at BigSur Partners, a wealth management firm with an office in Miami.

The Politzers paid $2.5 million for the single-story house in 2000. It was built in 1969 and sits on a 1-acre lot.

Sáez and García put their six-bedroom mansion nearby at 631 Arvida Parkway on the market earlier this year for $16.9 million. A listing for their latest purchase is not available online.

Sáez was crowned Miss Universe in 1981 and was a politician in Venezuela in the 1990’s. She was mayor of Chacao, a wealthy municipality of Caracas, from 1990 to 1997, and ran for president of her home country in 1998. García, meanwhile, owned businesses in Chile and Venezuela, and was also a principal at Ocean Bank in Miami, according to La Segunda, a conservative Chilean newspaper.

The wealthy enclave of Coral Gables has seen big-ticket sales this year. In March, auto magnate Alan Potamkin sold his Gables Estates home for $43.7 million, marking the priciest sale in Miami-Dade County in 2017.