Supersize me: South Florida guest houses keep growing

Brokers say luxury buyers are investing in “recreation habitats”

Multicolor houses
(Illustration by The Real Deal with Getty)

The one-bedroom in-law unit in the backyard isn’t cutting it for South Florida luxury buyers.

More and more, buyers are opting for bigger guest houses in South Florida, sometimes even a guest mansion. Whether it’s building that second mansion, buying a house next door or adding a second condo in their building, brokers say South Florida’s luxury buyers increasingly want space to spread out.

“They’re investing in their own properties to create a recreation habitat for their family and their friends,” said Joy Triglia, an agent with Premier Estate Properties in Fort Lauderdale.

The trend is cropping up across the tri-county region. Triglia said that in Fort Lauderdale, particularly in the Harbor Beach neighborhood, people are buying up neighboring homes and mansions to use as guest space, as well as to maximize their water frontage and dock capacity. 

“People just realized that the value’s in the land. They can always split it back off,” she said. “When you’ve got lots that are selling for $6 million, what do you think is going to happen to the value of those properties?”

Luxury sellers have been marketing their estates with the main house and guest house as a package deal. 

Luis García, a concrete mogul, listed his 8,200-square-foot waterfront mansion in Miami’s Bay Point neighborhood with his non-waterfront guest house across the street for a combined $72.5 million. Records show García bought the 2,200-square-foot, four-bedroom, two-bathroom guest house, which includes a tennis court, pool, billiards room and gym, for $3.2 million in 2014.

In late February, García sold the waterfront mansion separately for a record $38.5 million. The guest house remains on the market for $17.5 million.   

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Also in February, Michelle Broda, the widow of a late fracking boss, sold an ocean-facing 1-acre estate in Delray Beach for $22 million. The property includes a 12,000-square-foot main mansion with five bedrooms and seven bathrooms, and an 8,000-square-foot guest mansion with two bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. Combined, the pair of mansions provide 20,000-square-feet of sprawl for the new owner, real estate investor Daniel Edwards, and his guests.

How owners are expanding their guest space varies across markets. John Cregan, an agent with Sotheby’s International Realty in Palm Beach, said more people are looking to buy second condos in their buildings on the island.

“One thing driving it is it’s gotten very hard to get a hotel room, and the rates have gone through the roof,” he said. Remote and hybrid work is making it possible for family and friends to visit more frequently for longer stays, which gets inconveniently costly if they’re staying at The Breakers, Cregan said.

So, for many Palm Beach residents, it makes more sense to buy a second condo to house their kids and grandkids on extended stays, he said.

“People are building their compounds,” said Alison Barens, an agent with Equestrian Sotheby’s International Realty. Barens specializes in the Wellington market, where she said many people convert the second stories of barns as space for equestrian staff and visiting riders. 

When it comes to supersized guest houses, brokers acknowledge that it can also be about keeping up with the Joneses.

Said Triglia of Premier Estate Properties: “Some are doing it because they can.”