Miami philanthropist Adrienne Arsht set new record price with sale of her estate

Adrienne Arsht, the prominent Miami philanthropist and attorney, on Friday sold her sprawling Coconut Grove estate overlooking Key Biscayne for $106.9 million, a record price in Miami-Dade County for a residential sale.

The buyer of the four-acre Arsht Estate, which is nestled along the bayfront, wasn’t disclosed. Arsht, who formerly ran her family-owned TotalBank, is known for donating millions to several causes — most notably her namesake the county’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

Although the property sale falls short of the $150 million asking price when it hit the market in January, it surpassed the peak set by hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin. Griffin, a Florida native, is moving his Citadel financial-services firm from Chicago to Miami. He paid $75 million this year for a two-acre residence on Miami Beach’s Star Island.

The historic sale price of Arsht’s estate exemplifies the lingering demand for South Florida’s luxury real estate, said Ashley Cusack, the property’s listing agent and senior vice president of Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices EWM Realty.

“We’ve gotten a lot of attention over the last few years,” Cusack said, noting the stream of corporate expansions and wealthy Miami-area newcomers. “We’ve become an important place in the country. We’ve made a name for ourselves.”

Although Cusack declined to disclose the identity of the buyer, she said the person bought the estate after being impressed with its grandeur and views. Jill Hertzberg of The Jills Zeder Group represented the buyer and also declined to reveal the name of the property’s new owner.

Arsht called her former primary home Indian Spring. Built in 1999, Indian Spring covers nearly 13,000 square feet and has five bedrooms and five bathrooms. Jose A. Gelabert-Navia, former dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture, designed the two-story mansion. The compound has a tennis court, a pool perched on a bluff and a guest house with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a gym above a six-car garage.

The estate includes a separate 5,200-square-foot, three-bedroom historic residence, Villa Serena. That house, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms includes a guest house on top of a three-car garage. U.S. Secretary of State and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan commissioned August Geiger, one of the most prominent American architects, to design and build the two-story home in 1913.

Bryan had lived a short distance from James Deering’s villa that became Miami’s Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, built just three years after Bryan’s residence. Arsht restored the house and worked with preservationists to help place Villa Serena on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.

The 80-year-old Arsht bid farewell to Miami after selling her home, Cusack said. Arsht said in a prepared statement, “As the steward of this beautiful property, I am proud to leave its legacy to the next generations of caretakers.”

Arsht boosted Miami’s performing arts community in 2008 with a $30 million donation to the county’s performing arts center in the Arts & Entertainment District, adjacent to downtown Miami. She continues to support cultural centers across the country, including giving $5 million in 2020 to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for paid internships and programming.

Arsht now resides in Washington, D.C., where she owns a 10-bedroom residence in Georgetown.

In January, the philanthropist said she planned to donate the proceeds from her Miami property sale to charity. On Friday, she said she’s still committed to do that, but has yet to decide on the nonprofit organization that will get the windfall.

This story was originally published September 2, 2022 8:50 PM.