Mobile gaming tycoon, investment manager wife pay $29M for Hibiscus Island spec mansion

Seller paid $11.6M for the site and next-door dev lot in 2018

Michele and Kevin Segalla and Ilya Karpov with 320 Hibiscus Drive (LinkedIn, Craig Denis)
Michele and Kevin Segalla and Ilya Karpov with 320 Hibiscus Drive (LinkedIn, Craig Denis)

Mobile games tycoon Kevin Segalla and his investment manager wife, Michele Segalla, bought a waterfront Miami Beach spec mansion for $29.1 million.

Russian developer Ilya Karpov sold the newly built home at 320 South Hibiscus Drive on Hibiscus Island to the Segallas, according to a deed.

Kevin Segalla is the founder and CEO of New York-based Tilting Point, a free-to-play game publisher and developer, according to his LinkedIn. He also founded investment firm CFC Capital, which focuses on specialty finance, commercial real estate, and entertainment and digital media ventures. Michele Segalla’s LinkedIn shows she is managing partner at Stamford, Connecticut-based CFC and previously directed sales at Ivy Zelman’s Zelman & Associates housing research firm.

The house spans 8,000 square feet with seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms and one half-bathroom, according to Karpov, who completed the mansion last year. It’s on a 0.4-acre lot, records show.

Paulo Bacchi’s Artefacto, known for its luxury, contemporary-style furniture, furnished the home. The sale price includes the furniture.

Karpov is a Miami Beach spec home developer who has purchased and resold several properties in recent years. He bought the Hibiscus Island site, along with the 0.4-acre next-door lot at 310 South Hibiscus Drive in 2018 for $11.6 million. He split the property to build two houses.

He sold the 310 South Hibiscus Drive house to Volantis Properties, a Delaware-registered limited liability company managed by attorney Michael Gallinar, for $22 million last year, records show. At the time, the house was under construction, but Karpov agreed in the deed to help the buyer complete the home, according to media reports.

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In his latest Miami Beach investment, Karpov bought the 0.6-acre waterfront lot at 2740 North Bay Road from Delphine Dray, who owns the National Hotel in Miami Beach, for $20.8 million in April.

The site once held a two-story, light brown, barrel-tile roofed house that Miami Beach had deemed historic. Yet, in 2018 the city approved Dray’s demolition application and her plan to build a new home emulating the character of the former one.

Karpov plans a roughly 12,000-square-foot mansion with an updated design from that approval, but still mirroring the former mansion on the site, he said.

In other deals, Karpov sold the 7,000-square-foot waterfront spec house at 38 South Hibiscus Drive to Canterbury Ives Management, managed by attorney Josh Bennett, for $14.2 million in 2019.

Karpov is a former general director at the OGO Group, which was once one of Russia’s largest grain producers. After selling his company stake, he moved to Miami Beach, The Real Deal has reported.

Hibiscus Island is part of a chain of three high-end residential islands, including Palm and Star islands, that extend from the MacArthur Causeway that connects Miami and Miami Beach.

In April, Richard Gebbia, part of the Gebbia family that owns Siebert Financial, paid $6.4 million for a non-waterfront spec house at 112 West Palm Midway on Hibiscus Island. The home was nearly complete at the time the sale closed.