Jaime Gilinski, a billionaire Colombian banker who has assembled land on exclusive Indian Creek, is the buyer of Adriana Lima’s waterfront estate that sold in December for $40 million, The Real Deal has learned.
Gilinski now owns five contiguous properties stretching from 18 to 22 Indian Creek Island Road. Sources confirmed he purchased Lima’s home in an off-market deal. Property records show the supermodel sold the nearly 2-acre property to a British Virgin Islands entity.
A trust tied to Lima, a Brazilian model and former Victoria’s Secret Angel, paid $9 million for the four-bedroom, four-bathroom home in 2009. The 6,465-square-foot house was built in 1958.
Gilinski, former chairman and controlling shareholder of Banco de Colombia, is now chairman of his JGB Financial Holding Company, which owns South Florida-based JGB Bank. Forbes pegs his net worth at $3.7 billion.
Indian Creek, north of Miami Beach, has long attracted the ultra wealthy.
Gilinski began acquiring property on the island in 2010, when he bought 20 and 21 Indian Creek Island Road.
That roughly 20,000-square-foot mansion previously belonged to Herbert William Hoover Jr., the son of the founder of the Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Company, and his wife Carl. The estate, with a pool and tennis court, was developed in 1971 and expanded through the years, records show. It’s unclear how much he paid for the two properties.
Through a different British Virgin Islands entity, Gilinski paid $14.5 million in 2011 for the 10,222-square-foot mansion at 18 Indian Creek Island Road, and $18.6 million in 2012 for the lot at 19 Indian Creek Island Road.
Excluding the former Hoover estate, he’s spent more than $73 million over the last decade-plus on Indian Creek.
Luxury residential developer Todd Michael Glaser, who, along with partners, acquired an Indian Creek estate last summer from longtime “Sábado Gigante” host Don Francisco, said Lima could have sold her home for more money, considering the sale price of comparable properties.
In December, billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin paid $75 million for a teardown on Star Island, adding to his portfolio on the pricey island. That deal set a record for single-family home sales in Miami-Dade County.
“1.88 acres on Star Island just sold for $75 million. [Lima’s] was 2 acres with a house. I think she could have gotten $70, $75 million,” Glaser said. “The property has got a phenomenal view.”
Glaser and his partners Jim Randall, Scott Robins and Jonathan Fryd, purchased the home at 37 Indian Creek Island Road for $23.8 million in July.
In April, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner acquired a waterfront mansion on the island for $24 million.
Over a year ago, supermodel Gisele Bündchen and her husband, the newly retired quarterback Tom Brady, paid $17 million for the lot at 26 Indian Creek Island Road. A company tied to developer Jeffrey Soffer, who was previously married to supermodel Elle Macpherson, sold the property.
Other Indian Creek homeowners include billionaire Carl Icahn – who is two doors down from Lima’s property – as well as billionaire hedge funder Eddie Lampert, Taubco CEO Irwin Tauber, Hotels.com co-founder Bob Diener, billionaire IndiGo airline co-founder Rakesh Gangwal, and Mary Anne Shula, the widow of the late Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula.