Miami Beach Founder Carl Fisher’s $65M Star Island Mansion Hits the Auction Block

Published: December 29, 2017 | By: American Luxury Staff

A mansion built by seminal Florida real estate developer, highway developer and automotive industry pioneer Carl Fisher is going from open market to auction next month. The dazzling property, which was renovated last year, had been listed with an asking price of $65 million prior to the announcement.

Located on Star Island, the estate sprawls around a 40-room Italianate villa. The house dates to 1923. The property has not been offered for sale in thirty years.

Even on Star Island, the home looks extravagant. Motor court and walkways are tiled, setting off the house’s whitewashed exterior and tiled roof, and the lush green landscaping, beautifully. The property features a very pleasing sense of expanse.

The home’s interiors follow through with that intoxicating sense of expanse, beginning with a great room with an ornate double-height ceiling and flanking second-floor galleries. The level of detail in the ceiling is extraordinary, making the ornate crystal chandeliers look entirely justified. Stone floors and clerestory windows enhance the palatial effect; the 3,000 bottle wine cellar, Corinthian-style columns, staff quarters and three offices help somewhat, too.

The 18,500 square feet of interior living space on the property are augmented by the exterior terraces bordered by stone balustrades. The property extends to just under 1.5 acres.

Fisher is generally regarded as the founder of Miami Beach, which he envisioned as a playground; in the years leading up to WWI, he dredged Biscayne Bay and built the first luxury hotels which would accommodate the influx of vacationers to the engineered resort.

Fisher rode the wave of the Florida land boom in the 1920s and was known as one of its best promoters. By 1926, he was worth an estimated $100 million. That’s a tidy $19 billion in today’s dollars (using relative share of GDP as an indicator).

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