Billionaire's New Estate Sets Florida Record

It's not far from a property Larry Ellison purchased for $80M last year
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 24, 2022 7:29 AM CDT
Billionaire's New Estate Sets Florida Record
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, upper left, sits with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament, Oct. 13, 2021, in Indian Wells, Calif.   (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

One of the world's richest people, billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, has just dropped $173 million on new digs, setting a record for the largest residential sale in Florida history. And by a long shot. Previously, the state hadn't seen a home sell for more than $130 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. Ellison's new estate on a barrier island, bordered by a lake on one side and the ocean on the other, covers more than 22 acres in Manalapan, south of Palm Beach, per the Palm Beach Daily News. It was purchased from software billionaire Jim Clark, who bought the property from the billionaire Ziff publishing family in March 2021 for just over $94 million, nearly half of what Ellison paid.

Clark tells the Journal that the estate, traditionally known as Gemini, was a "spur of the moment purchase" for his family, who have since more fully settled in New York. "I knew there was someone who wanted it and I beat them to it, so I thought, 'Let's see if they want it again.'" The paper notes Clark made no major changes beyond redoing some "mechanical systems." Ellison, who reportedly paid $80 million for a 6.5-acre oceanfront estate up the coast near North Palm Beach in the month after Clark made his Manalapan purchase, grabbed the property in an off-market deal.

The Oracle co-founder, who remains chairman and chief technology officer of the database-management company, will now get to enjoy 1,200 feet of beachfront and 1,300 feet of frontage on the Intracoastal Waterway. There's also a pond, a PGA-standard golf practice area, an 18-hole miniature golf course, a full tennis court, a half-size basketball court, a bird sanctuary, and a butterfly garden, the Daily News reports, adding "all of the those items were in place when Clark's trust bought the property."

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That's in addition to a main house, a guesthouse, two beach cottages, and a manager's house, per the Journal. Together they provide almost 85,000 square feet of living space, with 33 bedrooms, 34 bathrooms, and 13 half-baths. The 77-year-old—the world's eighth-richest person, with a net worth of $106 billion, according to Forbes—also owns 98% of Hawaii's Lanai island, where he primarily lives, per Insider, which takes a look at his "extensive" real estate portfolio. (More Florida stories.)

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