South Florida’s Trump Group Simply Reset The World Bar For Luxurious Actual Property—Once more

Extremely-high web value actual property has lengthy been filled with sizzling pictures, narcissists, and bravado.

In flip, unscripted actuality reveals like Bravo’s “Million Greenback Itemizing” and Netflix’s “Promoting Sundown” have minted rankings and superstars out of realtors and builders, a lot of whom had been simply scrapping to get an inventory or a mortgage a number of years earlier.

Luxurious actual property can be rife with hyperbole: flick through most multi-million greenback listings in Miami, Manhattan, or Los Angeles, and also you’d be tempted to imagine that each kitchen is match for a Michelin-starred “chef” and that every fixture and end belongs within the Louvre.

Towards this background, it wouldn’t be unreasonable subsequently to assume that the tagline for the just lately accomplished Estates At Acqualina in Sunny Isles Seaside—a.ok.a “The World’s Best Residences”—would possibly whiff of a little bit aggrandizement.

In the event you’re conversant in Florida’s “different Trumps”, nonetheless, you’d even be completely incorrect since hyperbole shouldn’t be their model and perfection is what they do.

Seventeen years in the past in 2006, South African-born brothers, entrepreneurs, and actual property builders Jules and Eddie Trump, together with Jules’ spouse Stephanie (none of them associated to the previous President), opened Acqualina Resort & Residences, spanning 4.5 oceanfront acres with 98 visitor rooms, 188 residences, and award-winning eating places and facilities all wrapped up inside a 51-story tower fronted by 400’ of perfectly-manicured Atlantic Ocean seaside 30-minutes north of Miami.

Within the course of, the Trumps succeeded in setting a brand new excessive bar for luxurious actual property and hospitality in South Florida. Extra considerably, Acqualina additionally put Sunny Isles Seaside on the map because the epicenter of Florida’s new “Riviera”.

Over the subsequent few years, Acqualina rapidly turned one of the vital coveted lodge reservations on this planet (no hyperbole right here). It’s earned Forbes Journey Information’s 5 Star and AAA’s 5 Diamond Awards—each luxurious hospitality gold requirements—fourteen years in a row, and just lately was ranked the #1 Greatest Vacation spot Resort in America by USA As we speak.

Consequently, should you name as much as guide a room at Acqualina on any date aside from a Monday in August, you’ll more likely to be met with a typical, perpetual chorus: “Sorry. We don’t have something accessible for these days”—which, should you’re the Trumps, is an effective downside to have when your starter rooms go for a mean of $1,200 an evening.

“Our preliminary imaginative and prescient with Acqualina was to construct a family-run lodge that had the entire parts of the best resorts in Saint-Tropez with the magnificence of an incredible, historic metropolis lodge,” says Jules Trump about their authentic imaginative and prescient for Acqualina and the hole they presciently noticed available in the market.

“Stephanie, Eddie, and I all felt again then that what was actually lacking in luxurious hospitality had been nice facilities and creature comforts, notably whereas spending the day on the seaside, together with the whole lot from eating and drinks to distinctive service and spas. We needed our visitors to step into the unique world of Acqualina and really feel as if their each want and want had been anticipated earlier than they even needed to ask for it.”

Utilizing Acqualina Resort’s success as a springboard, the Trumps opened The Mansions At Acqualina subsequent door a decade later in 2015, which consisted of 79 non-public residences in an iconic 47-story constructing designed by Cohen Freedman Encinosa & Associates that’s nonetheless the tallest in Sunny Isles Seaside at 643’.

Billed as Florida’s first “mansions within the sky”, The Mansions At Acqualina delivered on nearly each element, end, and amenity that hadn’t beforehand been pushed in luxurious actual property earlier than. It additionally set a brand new customary for what the synergy of world-class design, artwork, structure, and way of life on the seaside may appear to be—one thing which each and every different South Florida developer continues to be attempting to catch up and outduel one another on.

Not surprisingly, particularly given their good timing effectively after the Nice Recession, The Mansions At Acqualina totally bought out inside months of launching gross sales, additional solidifying the Trumps’ reputation as one of many main luxurious actual property builders on this planet—even when their legendary lack of presence within the press and shouting their success from their penthouse rooftops belies their extra innately modest and humble aspect.

Quick ahead one other six years to now, and the Trumps’ latest improvement—The Estates At Acqualina, which brings to market 245 residences in two gleaming, glass waterfront towers this time on the north finish of the resort—someway manages to lift the luxurious actual property bar once more.

The Estates’ finances is a part of that success, which at $1.8 billion makes it one of the vital costly new residential developments in America. This perfection-at-any-cost ethos ensured that no expense was spared to surpass consumers’ expectations at each stage, from the world-class architects, inside designers, and craftsmen behind the planning and development down to each materials, end, and fixture and the bolts, screws, and rivets that maintain all of it collectively.

The opposite driver of The Estates’ success has been readability of imaginative and prescient—and equally importantly, the power to execute on it, which not coincidentally has been one of many Trumps’ actual property hallmarks for greater than 4 many years since they first developed Miami’s Williams Island again within the Eighties.

Since its origin second, the Trump Group’s aspiration for The Estates at Acqualina was to create a luxurious way of life that might set it aside from the rest on this planet, and to design a constructing from the within out inside which these particulars, experiences, indulgences, and facilities may very well be delivered to life in a approach that might be easy and osmotic.

“Perfection in something isn’t simple to attain,” says Jules, “However The Estates at Acqualina is sort of merely that. After the extremely profitable opening of Acqualina Resort & Residences seventeen years in the past, adopted by the creation of The Mansions at Acqualina, The Estates go even additional than we ever thought we may go. No expense was spared to design and construct the 2 towers, the whole lot is the perfect in its class, and our high quality is incomparable when it comes to the supplies we’ve used together with mosaics, marbles, and metals. The Estates are additionally a celebration of artwork, structure, and way of life and a pursuit of perfection that you simply’ll see manifested all over the place, from the grand formal entrance to the signature integration of recent and traditional structure to the exemplary providers that we provide to our residents.”

Not surprisingly—and with a little bit enhance from the pandemic which despatched 40 and 50-something, deep-pocketed consumers from New York particularly fleeing to Florida for bigger flooring plans and an upscale work-from-home way of life—each The Estates’ North and South Towers pre-sold out by mid-2021.

The Estates’ facilities and exclusivity had been an enormous a part of that, says Jules, along with the towers’ beachfront actual property and Florida’s tax benefits, which helped to draw consumers with youthful households who naturally gravitated to 6 acres of Masters-quality lawns, landscaping, and swimming pools on the ocean, a quarter-mile of postcard beachfront, 5 eating places, and over 45,000 SF of indoor and outside facilities inside the Tuscan-styled Villa Acqualina connecting The Estates’ two towers.

“The Estates not solely offers the world’s most interesting residences,” Jules tells me with a uncommon be aware of self-satisfaction, “But in addition the world’s most luxurious facilities for our residents, redefining the usual for stylish dwelling. The Acqualina model has at all times prided itself on placing our residents first, and Villa Acqualina which is the epicenter of our facilities is an unprecedented providing in a residential improvement, together with a spa, an ice skating rink, bowling lanes, a movie show, a children membership, a teen room, an incredible well being and health sanctuary known as Acquafit with a juice bar, salt room, and boxing health club, and a Wall Road Dealer’s Membership the place residents could have entry to ticker tape, computer systems, and a board room.”

If The Estates At Acqualina has a penultimate pièce de résistance, nonetheless, for Jules, Eddie, and Stephanie it’s the towers’ lobbies, each of which had been envisioned by German designer Karl Lagerfeld, who for many years was inventive director for the French style home Chanel. The Estates’ lobbies are Lagerfeld’s solely residential fee within the U.S. (Lagerfeld died in 2019), so that they maintain a particular place for the Trumps given their reverence for world-class design and structure.

“The Estates architecturally are purposefully a mixture of latest parts and design merged with European Outdated World model that Eddie and I, together with my spouse Stephanie, personally love,” says Jules. “We’ve discovered that our consumers adore it too. So, after we dedicated to creating ‘The World’s Best Residences’ at The Estates at Acqualina, we knew that needed to be obvious from the minute our residents stepped by means of the door. Thus, the foyer design was an important determination. Towards that finish, it was an apparent option to have our lobbies designed by one of many world’s most vital designers: Karl Lagerfeld, the very grasp of recent creativity. We additionally take nice delight in the truth that Karl selected Acqualina as his first residential mission in the USA to convey his eye for opulence, luxurious, design, and elegance to.”

On the culinary entrance, The Estates At Acqualina is equally world-class in its A-list, pursuit of perfection.

Avra—the primary enlargement of the enduring New York Metropolis Greek restaurant—just lately opened in Villa Acqualina in November 2022 to widespread acclaim and is now one among Miami’s hottest new eating spots.

“At The Estates, Avra has rapidly turn into one of many largest promoting factors,” says Jules. “It’s greater than a $10 million enterprise—the restaurant is 12,000 sq. ft, together with an al fresco eating space that overlooks the ocean. The design consists of an infinity pool, a group of latest artwork and a panoramic bar. The restaurant flies in fish from the Mediterranean daily, has its personal community of fishermen, and produces its personal olive oil. Based mostly on my quite a few instances eating at Avra in New York, eating there’s an expertise that transcends your typical meal out and creates a one-of-a-kind expertise.”

If the whole lot about all of this sounds interesting, billionaire neighbors are your factor, and you’ve got a number of million to spare, a number of residences at The Estates At Acqualina can nonetheless be yours by way of re-sale.

The primary is Casa D’ Oro, a two-story, turn-key, single-family dwelling within the South Tower that’s simply re-hit the marketplace for $39,000,000.

Furnished by Fendi Casa, Casa D’ Oro flips the script on the everyday South Florida rental mannequin which for many years has priced properties vertically—specifically that the upper up you go the dearer and bigger they’re.

Casa D’ Oro is the anti-penthouse, situated on the South Tower’s floor flooring proper subsequent to the Acqualina resort, with direct seaside entry, a personal pool, outside summer time kitchen, a personal elevator, a four-car storage, 11’ ceilings, and 6 bedrooms and seven ½ baths unfold out throughout 11,605 impeccably furnished sq. ft.

The second is an unfinished 15,000-square-foot, four-story residence situated within the Boutique North Tower that’s now available on the market for $85 million—which if it sells for wherever close to its asking worth can be the most costly rental ever bought in South Florida, besting the present document of $60 million hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin paid for his 12,500 sq. foot Faena Home pad in Miami Seaside in 2015.

Named Casa di Coba after its present homeowners Joshua and Jenni Coba—who made a fortune in haircare and are reselling the rental to reap the benefits of Miami’s nonetheless smoking sizzling actual property market—the residence has seven bedrooms, 9 loos, six powder rooms, a personal pool and four-car storage, its personal elevator, a three-story spiral staircase, a 3,100 sq. foot visitor home, and a personal oceanfront cabana furnished by Fendi.

As for the Trumps’ subsequent magnum opus after The Estates, Jules, Eddie, and Stephanie stay coy. However the one factor that’s for sure is that inertia isn’t their factor.

“We’re at all times taking a look at new alternatives and locations the place we will increase the bar once more and construct one thing that units a brand new customary for luxurious and way of life,” Eddie tells me with a wry smile. “The place and what that’s, you’ll simply have to attend and see.”

Judging from what he, his brother Jules, and Stephanie have executed earlier than, each different developer needs to be holding their breath as effectively to see the place the bar strikes subsequent.