Digital marketing mogul pays $21M for oceanfront teardown in priciest Golden Beach sale this year

Gastón Taratuta, the founder and CEO of digital marketing firm Aleph Holding, bought an oceanfront Golden Beach teardown for $21 million, marking the town’s priciest sale so far this year. 

Taratuta’s 655 Ocean Boulevard Land Trust bought the house at 655 Ocean Boulevard from Stuart I. Meyers, records show. 

Jill Hertzberg and Jon Mann of the Jills Zeder Group at Coldwell Banker Realty had the listing, and Mann brought the buyer. 

Taratuta founded Miami-based Aleph in 2020, building off his Latin America-focused digital marketing firm Internet Media Services, which he founded in 2005, according to LinkedIn. Aleph filed for an initial public offering in the U.S. in 2021 after receiving a $2 billion valuation, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company withdrew its IPO plans in July of last year, Reuters reported. 

Meyers is chairman and CEO of the Meyers Group, an Aventura-based real estate development firm. He bought the Golden Beach mansion for $10 million in 2019, records show. 

Built in 1947 on 0.7 acres, the house was expanded several times in the 20th century and now spans nearly 8,900 square feet, records show. It has eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms and one half-bathroom. Hertzberg and Mann confirmed it is a teardown. 

Golden Beach has become a hub of redevelopment in recent years, as affluent buyers moving into South Florida fueled a boom in demand for oceanfront properties.

“For whatever reason, it wasn’t in Miami Beach so it didn’t get the glitz and the excitement,” Hertzberg said of the years Golden Beach flew under the radar. Mann anticipates a slew of trophy properties valued near $100 million will be developed in the tiny enclave in the next five years. 

“Within the next couple years it’s going to be full of new construction homes,” he said. 

Meyers first listed the mansion for $34 million in April of last year, and subsequently dropped the price four times before it sold for $21 million, Redfin shows. 

Had it sold for that initial asking price, the property would have been among Golden Beach’s priciest sales ever. In 2022, tech billionaire Phillip Ragon bought a trio of adjacent teardowns for more than $90 million. Other recent deals in the area include an investor group’s $12 million sale of a renovated non-waterfront home in April. In March, the head of a beauty company bought a waterfront mansion for $14.5 million. In January, a lawyer and investor sold a house for $10.5 million.