A waterfront spec mansion in North Miami sold for $20.7 million, setting a record in the coastal city.
Vilma Vilarino Knips, owner of the popular chain of restaurants called Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine and La Casita, and her husband Jimmy Knips, CEO of The Christmas Palace, sold their new modern home at 11420 North Bayshore Drive to a hidden buyer. The deal went into contract last month.
The 12,600-square-foot mansion, designed by Portuondo Perotti, has six bedrooms and seven and a half bedrooms. It was completed this year and has about 100 feet of waterfront with a private dock, infinity edge pool and outdoor kitchen.
Joel Lusky and Alexander Knips of The Brokerage South Florida co-listed the 0.4-acre property, last asking $23.9 million. Douglas Elliman’s Dina Goldentayer represented the buyer.
Lusky and Goldentayer declined to comment on the buyer.
The Knipses paid $2.7 million for the lot in 2019, property records show. Vilarino Knips owns more than a dozen restaurants, including Ku-Va Restaurant and Vila’s Cuban & Mexican Restaurant, according to her LinkedIn and Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine’s website.
The sale also set a record for the San Souci neighborhood, doubling the previous record set by the 2021 sale of the waterfront home at 1995 Northeast 118th Road, which traded for $10.6 million.
In April, former basketball star J.J. Barea and his wife, former Miss Universe Puerto Rico Viviana Ortiz, sold their waterfront North Miami home for $5 million. Andrea Lisbona and Ruggero Grammatico, who founded the hand sanitizer brand Touchland, bought the property.
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