Marine towing magnate’s trust sells waterfront Fort Lauderdale home

The property is across the canal from Pier Sixty-Six Hotel and Marina

2520 Mercedes Drive, Fort Lauderdale
2520 Mercedes Drive, Fort Lauderdale

The trust of a towboat company magnate sold a waterfront Fort Lauderdale estate for $8.1 million.

The trust of James Ronald Hunter, the founder of Nashville, Tennesee-based Hunter Marine Transport, sold the 7,029-square-foot home at 2520 Mercedes Drive for $1,152 per square foot, records show.

The buyers are Jacques Poitras and Lisette Gagnon.

The house is in the ritzy enclave of Harbor Beach and has 100 feet of water frontage on a canal. It has five bedrooms, five bathrooms and three half-baths. Built in 2017, the house overlooks Pier Sixty-Six Hotel and Marina.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Both the buyer and seller were represented by Tim Elmes with Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate – Fort Lauderdale Las Olas.

Hunter founded Hunter Marine in 1976 after he purchased a small towboat that he named after his mother. He grew the business to include more boats and barges, and later diversified his business by buying a large riverside bulk terminal in metro Nashville. Hunter died in 2017.

Harbor Beach is home to a number of expensive homes. David Sokol, a former executive at Berkshire Hathaway, paid $19.9 million in 2017 for a 13,000-square-foot waterfront mansion at 2400 Del Lago Drive.

Also close by, TGM Associates bought the 394-unit Broadstone Harbor Beach apartment complex in March for $136 million.