Lennar’s Stuart Miller scores approval for Star Island compound

Lennar’s Stuart Miller scored approval for his waterfront mega mansion on Star Island in Miami Beach.

The modern compound, planned for the 2.8-acre property at 4, 5 and 6 Star Island Drive, would feature upper and lower level lagoons, a conference center/home office, a gym pavilion with a spa and massage room, a master suite with a terrace and plunge pool, a koi pond, and tropical landscaping, including gardens and a green roofscape.

Miller’s latest proposal calls for a smaller, 18,000-square-foot estate than he had previously planned. The Miami Beach Design Review Board approved the plans at a meeting last week. Domo Architecture + Design, led by Francisco Llado and Robert Moehring, is the architecture firm designing the project.

Miller, executive chairman of Lennar Corp. and son of the company’s founder Leonard Miller, grew up on Star Island and has been buying and selling properties on the island for years.

A trust owned by Miller paid $16.5 million for 4 and 5 Star Island Drive in 2018, and another Miller-owned trust paid $9.4 million for 6 Star Island Drive in 2004, property records show. Miller lives in a renovated and expanded roughly 12,000-square-foot estate at 7 Star Island Drive.

In 2015, contractors began building a structure on one of the lots included in his latest proposal, but that will be torn down, Miller’s attorney, Carter McDowell, said at the Design Review Board meeting.

“To make a home like this is to build a mid-sized office building,” said board chair Jason Hagopian, referring to the size of the project.

Miller secured approval for a modern mansion at 11 Star Island Drive in 2016, but eventually sold the lot to hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin in 2020 for $37 million.

Griffin has become a major player on Star Island. The Citadel founder and CEO, who is moving Citadel’s headquarters from Chicago to Miami, now owns 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 Star Island Drive, according to property records and sources. He likely spent about $170 million on the purchases.

Griffin recently sold the lot at 14 Star Island Drive to ex-Yankee and real estate investor Alex Rodriguez for $18.5 million. One source familiar with the deal said Rodriguez and Griffin swapped lots – Rodriguez had previously been linked to the purchase of 13 Star Island Drive, a property sandwiched between Griffin’s assemblage. Griffin also created a mega assemblage in Palm Beach. He owns a mansion in Coral Gables, and recently paid a record $107 million for Adrienne Arsht’s Miami estate, near Citadel’s planned headquarters on Brickell Bay Drive.

Star Island is home to real-life stars Gloria and Emilio Estefan and Sean Combs, known as Diddy.

Other recent buyers include billionaire Anthony Hsieh, the founder and CEO of LoanDepot, who paid $30 million last year for the waterfront mansion at 34 Star Island Drive.

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