Tech billionaire Eric Schmidt has been buying up waterfront homes on Miami Beach’s Sunset Islands, The Real Deal has learned.
Schmidt, a former chairman and CEO of Google, is the buyer of two adjacent houses on the islands that sold in late September for a combined $63 million, sources told TRD. That includes developers Craig Robins and Jackie Soffer’s mansion at 2511 Lake Avenue that sold for $36 million, as well as the $27 million sale of the property next door at 2501 Lake Avenue. Together, the two contiguous lots total 1.2 acres. The deals closed one day apart.
Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, have been collecting homes on the islands since at least 2020, according to an analysis of property records and sources. At least five of the houses are on Sunset Island II, the largest of the four man-made and gated islands west of Miami Beach Golf Club. The sales total nearly $114 million.
Schmidt is the latest of a string of billionaires building portfolios of pricey residential real estate in South Florida, joining others who include hedge fund manager Ken Griffin and the Bezos family.
Schmidt has a net worth of more than $20 billion, according to Forbes. Schmidt, his representative and LKLSG partner Stuart Grossman, his attorney for some of the purchases, did not respond to requests for comment.
The agents involved in the two most recent Miami Beach sales declined to comment. Jill Hertzberg of The Jills Zeder Group at Coldwell Banker appears to represent Schmidt in most of his residential purchases in the city. Hertzberg declined to comment.
The former home of Robins, CEO of Dacra, and Soffer, CEO of Turnberry Associates, hit the market in February for $45 million, with Hertzberg and her longtime teammate Jill Eber. It sold for a 20 percent discount off the original asking price. Billionaire media mogul Barry Diller, who is married to fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, made an offer on the property, but did not purchase the home, sources said.
The adjacent house listed for $34.9 million in October of last year, and sold for about 23 percent off that asking price.
Other buys
Schmidt, via other Delaware entities managed by the same attorney, is linked to additional sales. In late 2021, Venezuelan oil tycoon Gerardo Pantin Shortt sold the waterfront house at 1835 West 27th Street, also on Sunset Island II, for $17.4 million. Hertzberg represented the buyer.
Schmidt is said to also be the buyer of the $25.5 million waterfront home at 1740 West 25th Street on Sunset Island II in 2022. Luxury homebuilder Andres Isaias sold the property in an off-market deal orchestrated by the Jills Zeder Group after receiving an offer he said he “couldn’t refuse.”
Schmidt also bought the waterfront teardown at 1554 West 25th Street on Sunset Island II in 2020 for $8 million. He received approval from a Miami Beach board the following year to build a new house on the lot.
Schmidt may also be the true owner of at least two homes on Sunset Island I, totaling an additional $25.3 million.
In 2020, Marsha Soffer, daughter of Aventura developer and Turnberry Associates founder Donald Soffer, sold the waterfront mansion at 1616 West 28th Street on Sunset Island I to a Delaware entity managed by the same law firm Schmidt uses for $10.8 million. Another Delaware company managed by the same firm, paid $14.5 million the following year for the adjacent house at 1600 West 28th Street, records show.
The Schmidts are also backing the development of a five-story office building in South Beach. The couple has an 88 percent stake in the entity that owns the development site of the Fifth Miami Beach at 944 Fifth Street and 411 Michigan Avenue. Sumaida + Khurana and Bizzi & Partners own the remaining 12 percent, according to city records. The developers tapped Cushman & Wakefield last year to handle leasing. Construction began this year.
Before joining Google in 2001, the tech entrepreneur was chairman and CEO of the software company Novell. Schmidt was Google’s CEO from 2001 to 2011, and then served as the company’s executive chairman until 2015. He then became executive chairman of Google’s holding company, Alphabet, until 2018, and a technical adviser to Alphabet from 2018 to 2020.
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