Spec developer Philippe Harari’s AquaBlue Group sold a waterfront spec mansion on Miami Beach’s La Gorce Island for $62.5 million, making it one of the priciest sales ever for the island.
Records show Harari’s 98 LaGorce Aqua LLC sold the house at 98 La Gorce Circle to an entity named for the address. Records link the buying entity to U.K.-based Sun Consultancy LTD. The true buyer is unknown.
Mirce Curkoski and Albert Justo of the Waterfront Team at One Sotheby’s International Realty had the listing, and Jill Eber of the Jills Zeder Group at Coldwell Banker Realty brought the buyer.
Harari has been an active spec developer in Miami Beach’s luxury market. In 2019, he sold a Palm Island spec mansion for $24.5 million. The year prior, he sold another Palm Island spec mansion for $20.4 million.
Harari bought the 0.8-acre La Gorce Island property for $9.3 million in 2019, according to property records. His AquaBlue completed the 12,800-square-foot mansion last year. It includes seven bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, three half-bathrooms, a gym, spa, wine cellar, pool and dock, according to records and the listing.
Harari handled interior design for the project. Miami-based Choeff Levy Fischman Architecture + Design, led by Ralph Choeff, Raphael Levy and Paul Fischman, collaborated with AquaBlue on the design for the mansion. Levy was the principal architect on the project, founding principal Choeff confirmed.
“This particular developer came to us and asked us to design a home unlike any other we’d seen,” Choeff said. “He wanted to break the mold.”
Choeff said designing for ultra-luxury spec buyers requires using high-end finishes and practical interior layouts. “As far as the layout is concerned, you have to be very pragmatic when you’re designing a [spec home],” he said.
The spec mansion first listed for $75 million in 2022 before the price was dropped to $67 million in April, Redfin shows. Closing at $62.5 million makes the house one of the priciest ever sold on La Gorce Island and one of the island’s few trophy properties. The deal follows shortly after Anand Khubani was linked to the $100 million purchase of a waterfront assemblage on the island, previously owned by the late activist investor Dr. M. Lee Pearce.
The mansion at 98 La Gorce Circle is also adjacent to the 1.7-acre under-construction estate of haircare mogul Carolyn Aronson and her husband, Cash4Gold founder Jeff Aronson. The couple bought the compound at 100 La Gorce Circle for $19.6 million in 2019.
More recently, Bausch + Lomb CEO Brent Saunders paid $35.4 million in November for a La Gorce Island waterfront mansion once owned by Cher.