The Amazon founder announced Thursday that he’s moving to Florida, joining a community of high-profile neighbors including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Carl Icahn.
By Phoebe Liu and Giacomo Tognini, Forbes Staff
After nearly three decades in the Seattle area and some two years after stepping down as CEO of Seattle-based Amazon, Jeff Bezos is leaving the Pacific Northwest for Miami, he announced Thursday on Instagram. The world’s third richest person has purchased two homes on Indian Creek, Miami-Dade County’s luxury island community, in the past five months, snapping up a $68 million mansion in an off-market transaction in June and a $79 million pad right next door in October.
Indian Creek is a 294-acre man-made barrier island with just 41 homes all on one road, Indian Creek Island Road. The population was last tallied at a total of just 84 people, which includes a host of high-profile residents and billionaire landowners.
Miami lovers Bezos and Sanchez were in the coastal city as recently as May, 2023 when they attended the Formula One Grand Prix.
Clive Mason/Formula 1/Getty Images
“I want to be close to my parents, and Lauren [Sánchez, his significant other] and I love Miami,” he wrote in a Thursday social media post about his move back to The Magic City, where he attended high school (“Miami Palmetto High class of ‘82—GO Panthers!” he quipped) and where his parents now live. Bezos, who also founded and funds rocket firm Blue Origin, mentioned that more of the aerospace company’s operations are shifting to central Florida’s Cape Canaveral. “As exciting as the move is, it’s an emotional decision for me,” Bezos said in his post.
His newest home is a 7-bedroom, 14-bath estate that overlooks the bay on one side and a golf course on another (his mansion next door has another three bedrooms and three bathrooms). Both houses are the latest of several ultra-luxury property acquisitions by Bezos, who also purchased the nine-acre Warner Estate in Beverly Hills for $165 million in 2020. He also owns homes in Washington D.C., Manhattan and Maui. Bezos’ two Seattle-area properties, which he purchased in 2010, don’t yet appear to be on the market. Representatives for Bezos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bezos’ planned move is yet another example of a recent uptick in billionaire transplants to the tax-friendly state of Florida. In the past two decades, the number of Forbes 400 list members with their primary residence in the Sunshine State has doubled to 46, as such billionaires as financier Ken Griffin and Paychex founder Tom Golisano decamped from Chicago and near Rochester, New York, respectively. With Bezos’ move, that total will tick up to 47.
Bezos’ two waterfront homes feature a total of 10 bedrooms, 13 bathrooms and two swimming pools.
Google Earth
Meet some of Bezos’ soon-to-be neighbors:
(estimated property value: $330 million, the total for all five properties)
The billionaire Colombian banker and real estate developer lives across the pond in London but owns more parcels in Miami’s billionaire bunker than anyone else. He purchased five properties on the island for roughly $100 million over 11 years in the 2010s. Gilinski oversees one of the biggest banking empires in Latin America and has been working since 2015 to develop a former U.S. Air Force base near the Panama Canal, which Forbes once called “The Most Audacious Real Estate Project In The World.”
Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images
Tom Brady
(estimated property value: $50 million)
The retired NFL star purchased a $17 million lot on Indian Creek in December 2020, when he was still playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Since announcing his divorce from supermodel Gisele Bündchen in October last year, he’s pushed ahead with plans to redevelop the property and add a 856-square-foot dock with lifts for his jet-skis and boat.
(estimated property value: $60 million)
Braman, a billionaire art collector and owner of one of Florida’s largest car dealerships, has lived in Indian Creek longer than most of his neighbors. The property he purchased in 1991 for less than $4 million has increased in value nearly fifteen times. The former owner of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles first got rich selling pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
(estimated property value: $70 million)
Gangwal made his fortune in the skies as former CEO of US Airways Group and cofounder of India’s largest budget airline, IndiGo. He’s spent at least some of that fortune on land: In 2015, he purchased his Indian Creek island home for $30 million.
(estimated property value: $60 million)
The legendary corporate raider and billionaire activist investor lost a sizable portion of his fortune this year, thanks to short seller Hindenburg Research’s report alleging his publicly traded Icahn Enterprises was overvaluing its assets. (Icahn dismissed the report as self-serving.) As of Thursday, Icahn’s net worth—just over $6 billion—is less than half what it was in March. Real estate has been a better investment: he owns three homes each worth at least $50 million apiece, including a seven-bed, eight-bath Indian Creek home he purchased in 1997 for a small fraction of its current value. The former New York City resident reportedly made Indian Creek his main residence a few years ago.
Mega/Getty Images
Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump
(estimated property value: $40 million)
The Kushners bought their Indian Creek home in December 2020 from Spanish singer Julio Iglesias, who still owns multiple parcels on the island as well. The Trump-Kushner mansion is a retreat for the couple from Washington and New York criticism—although Ivanka Trump’s ties to Miami reentered the spotlight last week when she was ordered to testify in her father Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in part because she helped lead the acquisition of the Trump National Doral golf resort in Miami (and in doing so helped her father lie about his net worth).
(estimated property value: $90 million)
Investor and hedge fund manager Lampert has garnered a controversial reputation over the past decade. He took over as CEO of floundering retail giant Sears Holdings in 2013, hoping to turn it around, but failed miserably. Lampert bought his home on Indian Creek for $38.4 million in 2012, switching his primary residence from Greenwich, Connecticut, to Florida.
(estimated property value: $70 million)
Soffer’s Florida roots run deep. He’s one of seven children of Donald Soffer, who developed the Florida city of Aventura via his real estate development company Turnberry Associates. Jeffrey and his sister Jackie helped his father run the business until 2019, after which Jackie assumed the sole CEO role and Jeffrey split off to form Fontainebleau Development, where he’s currently CEO. Jeffrey Soffer was formerly married to supermodel Elle Macpherson.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani
(estimated property value: $90 million)
The 43-year-old Emir of Qatar is likely the buyer behind a $49.9 million, 28,000-square-foot mansion in 2019, which broke the county record for a single-family home sale at the time. A source confirmed to Forbes in 2021 that Tamim is in fact the owner and has been spotted on the island multiple times.
**Property values are an average of Zillow and Redfin estimates.
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Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
