The former head of Bolthouse Farms, one of the world’s largest producer of carrots, has submitted plans to replace a 91-year-old Miami Beach mansion on Palm Island with a new modern home.
Andre Radandt, who was CEO of Bolthouse Farms from 2002 to 2008, bought the circa-1925 mansion on a 17,674 square-foot waterfront lot at 11 Palm Avenue from Orlando Torres for $7.25 million in April 2015. Torres, back in 1995, paid $944,500 for the two-story Mediterranean-revival style home designed by architect Robert A. Taylor.
Existing home at 11 Palm Island
Unlike Taylor’s other creation, the Historic Spanish Village at South Beach’s Espanola Way, the mansion at 11 Palm Avenue is difficult for tourists to see, Radandt’s lawyer argued. “Given the narrow entrance, the home is essentially hidden from the public realm of Palm Avenue,” Greenberg Traurig attorney Ethan Wasserman explained in a letter to the city of Miami Beach’s Planning Department.
Radandt wants to replace that house with an 8,278-square-foot home designed by New York architect Dufner Heighes that will feature “lush landscaping throughout the property including a comprehensive rooftop garden,” Wasserman stated. The project will also include “beautiful water features to connect the property to its natural environment fronting Biscayne Bay.”
The 11 Palm Avenue house is scheduled to be discussed by the Miami Beach Design Review Board on July 5. It is one of four applications from homeowners seeking to demolish pre-1942 houses with modern structures. Under Miami Beach law, developers must gain design review board approval of a new home’s design prior to obtaining a demolition permit for a pre-1942 home, even if it’s not historically designated.
Founded in 1915, Bolthouse Farms was a California-based family owned business that by the 1950s was supplying carrots to companies like Gerber, Heinz, and Campbell Soup Company. The company website says Bolthouse Farms was the first to sell carrots wrapped in cellophane to supermarkets in 1959 and introduced baby carrots, or “shortcuts” in 1990. By 2003, Bolthouse was also selling bottled fruit and vegetable juices.
In 2005, while Radandt was CEO of Bolthouse, the Chicago private equity group Madison Dearborn Partners began “buying out Bolthouse shareholders,” according to a Bakersfield Californian story. At the time company revenues were about $500 million a year. In July 2012, Campbell Soup bought Bolthouse from Madison Dearborn Partners for $1.55 billion.
This isn’t Radandt’s first mansion. He and his wife Lisa purchased the 6,860-square-foot home of hydroplane legend Stan Sayres, located in Hunts Point, Washington, for $17.9 million in 2005. After offering the circa-1949 house for free to anyone willing to remove it from the site, the Radandts demolished it in 2006. The two-acre vacant site by Lake Washington was sold to the Hunts Point Trust for $14.8 million in 2011, according to the Seattle Times.
The Radandts’ renovation of a 1930s cottage in Charlevoix, Michigan was also the subject of a feature in Metropolitan Home magazine’s July/August 2005 issue.
Andre Radandt’s last reported real estate transaction ended in a loss. In January 2014, Radandt sold his five-bedroom house in Illinois for $2.75 million. He and his wife Lisa paid $2.8 million for the home in 2008, according to Chicagobusiness.com.