Ultra High Net Worth People Living in Indian Creek Island
Imagine a small island in Miami’s Biscayne Bay, 300 acres and 0.4 square miles sprinkled with some of the most luxurious homes in America. Imagine that island as home to the likes of business tycoon Carl Icahn, supermodel Adriana Lima, and now football icon Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen.
You’re thinking of Indian Creek, one of the most elite locations on the entire planet.
Home to billionaires and A-listers from Norman Braman to a certain anonymous Russian mogul, this lush enclave is about 20 minutes by car from Miami Beach. It’s an intoxicating draw for people like Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who sought discretion in their post-White House lives.
That’s the draw of Indian Creek: a small, secure place to live.
In this article you will read all about: Indian Creek Island Miami; who is building, who is selling, and why the draw.
Solitude and Indulgence, Miami-Style
One of the 30 homes on Indian Creek Island
The development is gated and has its own police force, including an armed marine patrol. They orbit the island around the clock, keeping tabs on the vast waterfront lots. Privacy is fundamental, as visitors aren’t encouraged. Access to Indian Creek requires crossing a fortified bridge and appointments are definitely necessary.
There are approximately 40 lots on Indian Creek Island and an estimated 30 residences. According to an article in the Miami Herald, the median assessed value for those dwellings is in the vicinity of $13.6 million.
The residences of Indian Creek are notable for their unpretentious quality. With large lots and plenty of space between neighbors, this place is less flamboyant than super-rich flashpoints like Star Island. Each home showcases its own dock, with a view of the iridescent Miami vista to the south.
Dwellings also include sumptuous resort-style swimming pools, wine cellars, a rooftop jacuzzi or two, and other requisite trimmings of top-tier living.
The isle houses the restrained but elegant Indian Creek Country Club, which contains an 18-hole championship golf course that makes up for the interior of the island. It’s a very exclusive spot, with an estimated $150,000 initiation fee and about 300 members. Find out the possible members to Indian Creek Country Club!
Crossing the bridge out of Indian Creek leads to some great shopping, with the stores at Bal Harbour and Surfside a sure highlight. The financial district in Brickell is 15 minutes away by car and the Miami beaches are world-renowned for a reason.
The residents of Indian Creek know what they want and know how to get it. Once they land on the island and sink their feet in, they’re in no big hurry to get off.
Indian Creek features some seriously low turnover and those who want to get in better watch the market carefully. Few homes are ever up for sale. For those in the know, Indian Creek is a special place. Its exclusivity and privacy make it an ideal place to make a life, setting the stage for a truly extraordinary experience under the South Florida sunshine.
Who Lives on Indian Creek?
The aforementioned Kushners dropped a reported $31 million for their 1.84 acre lot, a residence previously owned by Julio Iglesias.
The Spanish singer may well be the most famous resident of Indian Creek. He owns a reported three additional lots on the island. He purchased his first in 1978 to the tune of $650,000, eventually putting it on the market in 2008 for $28 million.
Will Kim Kardashian be the island’s next resident when she’s ready to get out of the limelight? We don’t see why not!
Remember that aforementioned unnamed Russian tycoon? The magnate purchased an Indian Creek home for a reported $47 million in 2012, rendering the most expensive home ever sold in Miami at the time. Ever since the mysterious new owner signed on the dotted line, people have wondered, and still nobody can figure it out, beyond the fact that they are Russian and very rich. Probably a billionaire, we expect. A few more details: It was bought in the name of a trust who's trustee is a Russian Lawyer named Andrey M. Kaydin. Mr. Kaydin has represented his anonymous client in scooping up other posh real estate as well, including a $22 million penthouse in New York City's 15CPW, a very famous new building.
There’s also steel magnate Leroy Schecter, who sold his mansion to an undisclosed buyer in 2014 to the tune of $28 million. That was a pretty steep drop-off from the original $45 million listing price.
Eddie Lampert, the hedge fund manager, dropped a cool $38.4 million to snap up his property in March of 2012. It’s a seven bedroom Italian job, cushioned comfortably on 2.7 acres right next to that special Country Club. Lampert, worth nearly $3 billion, bought this 17,000-square foot Italian-style abode that wasn't listed publicly for sale.
Leroy Schecter's Florida Home
Taubco CEO Irwin Tauber has Lampert beat with a nine bedroom home. He paid $7 million for it back in 2003. He faced allegations that he ran over a swimmer with his boat in Biscayne Bay near Bay Harbor Islands, slicing her leg and causing permanent injuries.
Theresa Murray filed suit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court Court in October 2020, alleging that Irwin Tauber’s 41-foot boat’s three bladed stainless steel propellers sliced her leg and ankle in April, while she was out for a swim. And instead of stopping, the complaint alleges that Tauber kept going, telling her that she should have been using a dive flag.
Tauber leads Bay Harbor Islands-based Taubco, which has owned shopping centers in and around North Miami. Taubco has proposed building Causeway Village, a mixed-use project with 297 luxury apartments and 15,480 square feet of retail at 1850 Northeast 123rd Street in North Miami.
Tauber owns a 21,000-square-foot waterfront mansion on Indian Creek Island, with eight bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and six half-baths, and a market value of $30.1 million, according to the Miami-Dade County property appraiser’s site.
Tauber’s lawyer, Neal Sandberg of Simon, Schindler & Sandberg LLP, said via email that the defendants, Tauber and the entity that owns his boat, “will respond to and defend against the claims” in the suit. He declined further comment, citing the pending litigation.
In the suit, Murray alleges that Tauber was operating the boat in a manatee zone, which requires boaters drive at slow speeds so that boats do not cause a wake.
The complaint alleges Tauber operated the boat at 46 miles per hour in the slow speed zone. The boat also allegedly took a shortcut by cruising under a bridge outside the designated channel, and ignored navigational markers going through an area with submerged pilings, according to the suit.
Murray was swimming less than 100 feet from the sea wall, in waters just over six feet deep, according to the complaint.
Tauber’s boat propellers then cut into Murray’s left leg, causing deep, permanent injuries to the blood vessels, deep tissue and nerves. This led to at least four separate lacerations, the suit states.
After running over Murray, Tauber drove the boat away, stopping farther away, according to the complaint. Murray yelled at Tauber, “You hit me!” But instead of coming back, Tauber said Murray “should have been wearing a dive flag!”
According to Murray’s lawyer, maritime attorney Jack Hickey of the Hickey law firm in Miami, she was not required to wear a dive flag, since she was swimming and not diving. The suit charges Tauber with violating numerous Florida statutes and Inland Rules of Navigation.
Real estate mogul Jeffrey Soffer has a lavish 29,270-square-foot estate with supermodel Elle MacPherson. His sister Jackie owned the house just next door. The Turnberry Associates CEO sold her waterfront Indian Creek Village teardown to her younger brother, Jeffrey Soffer, for $17 million, property, 2020 records show.
Brady and Bündchen spent a reported $17 million for their Indian Creek abode and the goal is to tear down the current mansion and reconstruct with an environmentally-friendly layout.
Tom Brady’s retirement from the NFL is bringing him and his family, including his supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen. It makes sense: If there is one sunny hub in the U.S. to which soon-to-be retirees flock, it’s Florida. And while some head for the suburban comfort of Boca Raton, and others opt for the clear, shallow waters that border Sarasota, a select few go to Indian Creek Island. It’s a 300-acre parcel of land that’s smaller than half a square mile in Miami Beach, accessible only by way of a supremely guarded bridge. There’s also 24-hour security in the air and on the sea because the island’s residents—Fontainebleau Miami Beach’s Jeffrey Soffer, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who bought a place on the Island in July 2021, and until recently Adriana Lima, who just sold her coveted property on the island, among others—who live within the 34 estates spread across the lush land, move there for the complete privacy. Indian Creek Island’s newest locals are power couple Tom Brady, who just announced his official retirement from the NFL, and supermodel Gisele Bündchen.
Jaime Gilinski, a billionaire Colombian banker who has assembled land on exclusive Indian Creek, is the buyer of Adriana Lima’s waterfront estate that sold in December 2021 for $40 million, according to The Real Deal.
Gilinski now owns five contiguous properties stretching from 18 to 22 Indian Creek Island Road. Sources confirmed he purchased Lima’s home in an off-market deal. Property records show the supermodel sold the nearly 2-acre property to a British Virgin Islands entity.
Finally, we have note that Alex Meruelo, a Cuban-American billionaire who holds business interests in banking, real estate, media, restaurants, food, casinos, and professional sports, and is the owner of Meruelo Group, as well as Meruelo Media, which owns five radio stations and two television stations in Los Angeles, has a home there with his wife Liset. In addition he is the owner of Fuji Food, two casinos, the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada and the Sahara Las Vegas in Las Vegas and is the majority owner of the Arizona Coyotes of the National Hockey League.
