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Software billionaire to pay over $90M for oceanfront Golden Beach teardowns
A seller of one of the homes is fashion photographer Bruce Weber
Software billionaire Phillip Ragon is the buyer of three adjacent oceanfront homes in Golden Beach, paying more than $90 million for the properties that he intends to tear down.
Ragon, CEO of the software firm InterSystems, is buying the houses at 287, 291 and 299 Ocean Boulevard from three sellers, including American fashion photographer Bruce Weber and his wife, film producer Nan Bush, sources confirmed. The Wall Street Journal first reported the planned sales.
The deals are separate from Ragon’s home at 667 Ocean Boulevard. He and his wife, Susan, paid $20 million for that house last year, which previously belonged to baseball star Sammy Sosa.
Ragon founded InterSystems, a software systems and technology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1978. He’s worth about $1.7 billion, according to Forbes.
Danny Hertzberg and Jonathan Mann of Coldwell Banker’s The Jills Zeder Group assembled the Golden Beach properties. Corcoran agents Eloy Carmenate and Mick Duchon, who declined to comment, are representing the buyer. Pablo Alfaro of Douglas Elliman is the listing agent for Weber’s home at 291 Ocean Boulevard, which is on the market for $25 million.
Hertzberg, who declined to comment on the buyer, wrote that the deals “took a great deal of effort, patience and persistence” over the course of a year. The buyer plans to demolish the existing homes and build a new mansion, the Wall Street Journal reported. Together, the properties total 1.7 acres.
Property records show B. Mitchell and Lori Grabois are selling the largest estate, a 7,293-square-foot home at 299 Ocean Boulevard. The Graboises paid $1.3 million for that home in 1990. It was built in 1936 and later expanded.
Weber and Bush paid $3 million in 2002 for their 4,757-square-foot home at 291 Ocean Boulevard, which was built in 1932.
Silverlane Realty LLC paid about $3.6 million for the 3,681-square-foot house at 287 Ocean Boulevard in 2003. It was built in 1956.
Nearby, the widow of Craig Electronics owner Joel Newman recently listed her oceanfront estate at 355 Ocean Boulevard for $100 million. Ryan Serhant, of Serhant, and Dina Goldentayer of Douglas Elliman are listing the 32,000-square-foot, nine-bedroom estate.
Last fall, an oceanfront Golden Beach home sold for its full asking price of $8.2 million, nearly 45 percent more than its previous sale less than a year earlier.