Since the summer of 2024, at least eight different addresses on La Gorce Circle have changed hands, each one reported as some kind of record. A $100 million assemblage. A $75 million mansion. A $31.5 million lot sale that a broker called "effectively a land play." None of that is an accident of a hot market. It's what happens when a guard-gated island with a fixed number of building sites runs out of anything new to sell, and the people who can afford to buy there stop pretending the house matters.
That's the part worth sitting with if you're pricing a purchase or a sale on La Gorce Island. The headline numbers coming off this street have almost nothing to do with square footage, finishes, or how recently the kitchen was redone. They're pricing dirt. The structure on top is often treated as a placeholder, sometimes literally scheduled for demolition before the closing paperwork is even finished.
The Street That Keeps Making Headlines
La Gorce Circle is a single loop road on La Gorce Island, reached by one bridge off North Bay Road. Here's what's traded there in under two years, based on public reporting:
| Address | Closed | Price | What happened to the house |
|---|---|---|---|
| 98 La Gorce Circle | June 2024 | $62.5M | Spec-built waterfront mansion, sold new |
| 18, 22, 24 La Gorce Circle | Sept 2024 | $100M | 1936-built homes; buyer began designing a replacement |
| 16 La Gorce Circle | Nov 2024 | $22.1M | Fourth parcel of the same assemblage, 1936-built |
| 66 La Gorce Circle | March 2025 | $60M | Newly completed waterfront mansion |
| 88 La Gorce Circle | May 2025 | $75M | 2008-built house, buyer planned a gut renovation |
| 68 La Gorce Circle | Aug 2025 | $32.7M | 1961-built house sold to a land trust |
| 84 La Gorce Circle | March 2026 | $31.5M | Sold to the neighboring owner as a land play |
| 31 La Gorce Circle | April 2026 | $10.4M | Non-waterfront lot, sold as a development site |
The $100 million deal is the one that made national news. Consumer brands executive Anand Khubani closed on three adjoining lots that had originally listed for $170 million, plus a fourth parcel that sold separately for $22.1 million, bringing the assemblage to roughly $122 million total. Broker Brett Harris, who represented Khubani, told The Real Deal the buyer had circled the property for almost a decade and that "the reduction in price made the land attractive." Not the house. The land.
Hedge fund manager Nick Maounis did something similar in slow motion. He paid $75 million for 88 La Gorce Circle in May 2025, planning a gut renovation of the 2008-built mansion, then came back in March 2026 and paid $31.5 million for the house next door at 84 La Gorce Circle, a deal that closed at $1,575 per square foot, described by the seller's representative as "effectively a land play" that hit "one of the highest price-per-square-foot figures in Miami-Dade history" for land. Two purchases, roughly two years apart, same buyer, same instinct: buy the site, worry about the structure later.
What Buyers Are Actually Bidding On
The clearest read on this dynamic is a deal that isn't technically on La Gorce Circle but happened alongside it. Spec developer Todd Glaser, who has bought and sold multiple La Gorce parcels, paid $105 million for a 2.3-acre waterfront estate on nearby North Bay Road in 2025. Asked about the numbers, he told Nelson Gonzalez's team plainly: "The land itself is worth probably $150 million. If somebody wants to buy the existing house, we'll sell it." At that valuation, the 2.4-acre lot works out to roughly $62.5 million an acre, a price that has nothing to do with what's built on it.
Glaser's own La Gorce track record makes the same point on a smaller scale. He bought a 0.6-acre non-waterfront lot on La Gorce Circle for $8.3 million in 2022, listed it as a development opportunity for an 8,000-square-foot house, and sold it in April 2026 to Coinbase executive David Farmer for $10.4 million. No structure changed. The land appreciated on its own.
Even the Jorge Mattos sale at 68 La Gorce Circle, a 1961-built Mediterranean house, got filed under land economics rather than home value. Listing broker Dora Puig called the $32.7 million sale the highest per-square-foot land deal in the city, and the buyer took title as a land trust, the kind of structure typically used when the plan is to clear the lot rather than live in what's there.
None of this is a coincidence of timing. La Gorce Island isn't building new waterfront lots. It never will. Every deal on this street is a bid on a site that cannot be replicated, and the price tag reflects that scarcity long before it reflects the roofline.
The Softer Market Sitting Right Next Door
Here's where it gets interesting for anyone comparing this island to the surrounding area. Portal-tracked data covering the broader La Gorce neighborhood, which blends the guard-gated island with adjacent mainland tracts, told a noticeably cooler story through mid-2026. Median price per square foot for the wider area came in near $957, down close to 18 percent year over year, while median list price per square foot in August 2026 was down roughly 10 percent from the year before. Even the days-on-market trackers can't agree with each other on this stretch of Miami Beach, which is itself a tell: when a segment trades so rarely that one or two closings swing the whole average, no single portal number can be trusted on its own.
That gap matters. If you pull up a generic neighborhood median for "La Gorce" while shopping, you're looking at a number diluted by mainland resale inventory that behaves like the rest of Miami Beach's single-family market: cooling, patient, negotiable. The island itself is not that market. It's a much smaller, much thinner pool of trades where a handful of ultra-high-net-worth buyers are setting per-acre records because the alternative, waiting for a better lot to come along, simply doesn't exist as an option.
What This Means If You're Looking at a Listing Here
Don't anchor to a blended area median or to a generic per-square-foot figure pulled from a portal search. On La Gorce Circle specifically, ask what the land alone is worth as if the house weren't there, get real numbers on water frontage footage and dock capacity since those two figures drive value more than interior finishes, and price out a teardown-and-rebuild scenario before you price out a renovation. If the seller's broker can't tell you the lot's exact frontage and depth off the top of their head, ask again before you write an offer.
What This Means If You're Selling
If you own on La Gorce Island, your leverage sits in the parcel, not the paint. A dated interior on a full-water-frontage lot with a working dock is not a liability the way it would be in a typical resale market. Buyers here have shown, repeatedly, that they'll pay a land premium and handle the rebuild themselves. What actually moves the number is frontage, lot depth, and how buildable the site is under current setbacks, the same variables Glaser pointed to when he called his North Bay Road lot "nearly 500 feet deep, a rarity."
A Few Questions Worth Asking
Does a renovated interior add much value on La Gorce Circle specifically? Based on the pattern of recent sales, less than it would elsewhere. Several of the priciest closings involved buyers who planned to demolish or substantially rebuild regardless of the existing house's condition.
Is the broader "La Gorce" median a fair proxy for island pricing? Not directly. That median blends mainland tracts with the island's guard-gated lots, and the two have been moving in different directions.
Should a seller invest in cosmetic upgrades before listing? Given how these deals have closed, money is likely better spent confirming exact frontage, seawall condition, and dock permitting than on interior staging.
If you're weighing a purchase or a sale on La Gorce Island, or trying to figure out which number actually applies to your situation, Max Mlekus can walk through the comparable land trades and the surrounding market side by side. Let's Connect.
