Teavana founder buys Versailles-inspired estate at huge discount

Teavana co-founder Andrew Mack paid $42.5 million for an ornate waterfront South Florida estate, a massive discount from the original $159 million asking price in 2015, The Real Deal has learned.

Developer Robert Pereira sold Playa Vista Isle, previously called “Le Palais Royal,” to Oppornova LLC, a Delaware company, property records show. Concierge Auctions and Ralph Arias of One Sotheby’s International Realty represented the seller of the 60,000-square-foot mansion. The auction, which occurred in November, had 11 bidders, according to a release. The $42.5 million price tag would exclude a buyer’s premium.

Mack and his wife Nancy founded Teavana about 20 years and sold the tea retailer to Starbucks for $620 million in 2012. Andrew Mack’s name appears on corporate records tied to the LLC in Hawaii.

One Sotheby’s said the deal — despite the steep discount — is the most expensive residential sale to close in Broward County. The second-priciest is the $27.5 million sale of 5 Harborage Drive in Fort Lauderdale in 2015.

The brokerage declined to comment on the sale price or buyer’s identity.

It’s also the priciest residential sale to close in 2018.

The five-acre Hillsboro Beach estate has more than 500 feet of beach frontage, two deep-water yachts, six waterfalls, a pool and Jacuzzi, and a putting green. It has 11 bedrooms, 22 bathrooms, an IMAX home theater, a 3,000-bottle wine cellar, a 20-car garage with tunnel access, chandeliers, and 22-karat gold leaf sprinkled throughout.

Pereira, president of The Middlesex Corp., a contracting firm based in Massachusetts, told the Wall Street Journal that construction cost him more than $100 million. It hit the market in 2014 for $139 million, going up in price the following year, and was de-listed in 2016.

The deal included an adjacent lot that can fit another building, garden or recreational area, according to the release.