As billionaire hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin’s judicious acquisitions became so newsworthy in the last five years or so, a story about the investment whiz selling a high-dollar item is something of a novelty at this point in time. The litany of peerless purchases in the past several years includes a de Kooning and a Jackson Pollock which the Citadel CEO picked up as a set at auction for $500 million. A $100 million Basquiat joined his collection earlier this year.
In the outbox for a considerable stretch during this period, however, was Griffin’s pair of penthouses in Miami Beach’s Faena House, which he purchased in 2015 for $60 million and attempted to flip only a few months later for $73 million. Perhaps he was bullish on the Miami Beach market, or maybe it was a more nebulous and nagging change of heart—after all, the top penthouse contains just five bedrooms and seven baths in its not-even 6,000 sq. ft. of interiors. A shoebox, in Griffin’s world.
In any case, the market resisted, and by last winter the larger penthouse was listed at just $37 million as Griffin attempted to mitigate his losses. The property recently sold for $35 million. The original ask was $55 million.
It’s a spectacular residence, boasting a blend of streamline and contemporary design elements, a series of striking textural transitions, and of course plentiful glass; its wrap-around terrace spans some 3,900 sq. ft., with idyllic water, beach and city views on display.
They can’t all be winners, to be sure. Griffin nevertheless remains one of the most astute real estate investors; his portfolio is in a league of its own. In the past three years alone, Griffin purchased penthouse pied-a-terre residences in Chicago’s No. 9 Walton—four levels; $60 million for the units, and many millions more to combine them—and Manhattan, where he dropped a record-setting $238 million on a 24,000 sq. ft. penthouse in the Robert A.M. Stern-designed boutique building 220 Central Park South. He reportedly picked up Calvin Klein’s Hamptons retreat for an additional $100 million, and expanded his $250 million Palm Beach estate for another hundred million still.
Griffin’s net worth is estimated at $15 billion.
