Investor John Devaney, who bought a $15 million home and helipad in Florida’s Key Biscayne, is now cashing in on the investment by listing it. The house was once part of a compound used by President Richard Nixon as a Winter White House, and was featured in the 1983 movie “Scarface.” Devaney paid another $15 million to buy adjacent land from other sellers.
“I literally went from the hangar and knocked on the door,” said Devaney, a Key Biscayne native, about his purchase of the property.
Devaney is listing the 2.38-acre property for $237 million, a sum that would set a record for Miami-Dade County. It surpasses the current high set when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, paid $170 million for an under-construction mansion on Indian Creek island.
The helipad dates back to Nixon’s tenure, according to the Wall Street Journal. Nixon and his family vacationed in a modest bungalow on the compound, with aides and Secret Service agents staying in nearby homes.
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“To handle the influx of officials, a large helicopter platform was built into the bay beside the Nixon compound,” according to the 2005 book “Florida History from the Highways.” Nixon’s bungalow was razed in the early 2000s.
The modern, roughly 13,000-square-foot house was built around 1981 by Roberto Striedinger, a pilot who was convicted of smuggling cocaine for the Medellín drug cartel, according to the book “Cunning Edge: A 45-Year Journey Conducting Global Undercover Investigations.”
The book notes that the U.S. government seized the property from Striedinger. It was then sold to Frederick and Caroline Perkins, who in turn sold it to Devaney.
Devaney said that his family didn’t move into the home initially, but used it as a marina and helipad.
Devaney founded broker-dealer firm United Capital Markets in 1999, and later started a hedge fund that bet on risky real-estate loans. In 2009, Devaney was named one of “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis.” Devaney said he is “quite proud” to be on Time’s list. “There were four or five presidents on that list,” he said. “And then little ‘ol’ John Devaney.”
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Devaney said part of his reason for selling is the strong market for trophy properties in Miami. “I am an investor in real estate,” he said. Although he and his wife love the property, their three children are grown and Miami is seeing an influx of wealthy individuals looking to buy real estate. “There are lots of guys looking,” he said. “Let someone else take a turn, one of these real big dogs in the market.”
“We’re seeing prices now that we’ve never seen before,” said listing agent Jill Eber of Coldwell Banker Realty, who is marketing the property with colleague Judy Zeder.
Zeder said the price is warranted by the property’s size and 862 feet of water frontage, with a marina and unobstructed views of Miami. “When you get a property like this that has so much land,” she said, “it’s truly a trophy property.”
Devaney said he believes the presidential provenance adds value to the property, which he expects to set a record. “The estate is far better than the other top sales that have occurred in Miami to date,” he said.