Restaurateur Myles Chefetz wasn’t planning on selling his waterfront Miami Beach home, when a billionaire buyer presented an unsolicited offer.
Chefetz, the owner of Miami Beach landmarks Prime 112, Big Pink and other restaurants, said his Venetian Islands house wasn’t for sale. “But if there were a 12 [million] in front of [the price] that would get my attention,” he said.
“I countered at a high number, basically because I didn’t want to sell it,” Chefetz said. “The broker pushed me for a counter.”
He ended up selling the property to billionaire Warren Lichtenstein, founder and executive chairman of Steel Partners Holdings L.P., for $15.5 million. Chefetz paid just $5.6 million for the Mediterranean-style home in 2013, property records show. It was built in 1936 and expanded throughout the years.
Dina Goldentayer of Douglas Elliman brokered the off-market deal. She declined to comment on the buyer. The New York Post reported it was Lichtenstein.
The two-story, six-bedroom and five-bathroom house sits on a 17,500-square-foot lot with a pool, dock and 100 feet of water frontage, records show. Chefetz also owns a unit at the Continuum in South Beach.
Pricing has skyrocketed in Miami Beach and throughout the Venetian Islands, and off-market deals are becoming increasingly common.
In March, Ticket Clinic founder Mark Gold sold his waterfront Rivo Alto home for $21 million to an entity managed by Keith Menin.
Around the same time, the seller of the waterfront home at 10 West San Marino Drive flipped it for $23.5 million, four months after buying it for $20.4 million.
In December, tech investor Keith Rabois paid a record $28.9 million for the waterfront mansion at 1429 North Venetian Way, buying it from the former CEO of Bolthouse Farms, Andre Radandt.