An Irish-Italian restaurateur bought a waterfront Coral Gables teardown on April 1st for $3 million — and flipped it three days later for $15.8 million.
It’s a puzzling deal in one of South Florida’s hottest luxury residential markets. Records show Patricia Toscano, whose family has owned Ristorante Rossini in Cork, Ireland since 1994, flipped the house at 6825 Sunrise Drive to Sunrise Drive Real Estate Holdings, a Florida LLC managed by attorney Greg Herskowitz. The true buyer is unknown.
She bought the house just three days earlier from the trust of Jeffrey Scott Gerson, managed by Amagansett, New York-based international criminal defense attorney Michael Griffith.
The deal amounted to a $12.8 million increase in the roughly 72 hours the home was in Toscano’s name. Mary Jochem with Slesnick and Jochem had the listing, and Judy Zeder with the Jills Zeder Group at Coldwell Banker Realty brought the buyer.
Records show Gerson bought the 0.4-acre property for $850,000 in 1992. The 4,200-square-foot house was built in 1965, and has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a pool, according to property records.
It listed in August as a “development opportunity,” asking $17.9 million, Zillow shows.
Waterfront properties are in high demand in Coral Gables. Last month, a family sold their waterfront teardown in Gables Estates for $17.3 million. In August, Goya Foods scion Francisco R. Unanue sold a 1-acre waterfront lot for $18.5 million. In July, the CEO of a San Francisco-based lending firm sold his waterfront mansion for $27.5 million.