Full story here from The New York Times.
ON Jan. 12, Richard Goodwin, who made a fortune building condominiums, publicly lamented his own real estate woes. In a letter to The Fisher Island Voice, an online forum for residents of this tiny, gilded island less than a mile off Miami, he wrote, “I have $1.2 million invested” in property here, and “I am suffering under a 40 percent meltdown of my net worth.”
Just a year ago, his revelations would have seemed unthinkable on Fisher Island, one of the country’s wealthiest communities, whose residents relish the privacy of their mini-paradise.
Chock full of Mediterranean-style condominiums facing the sea, the Miami skyline or a golf course, the isle features yachts moored in private marinas, flamingos that stroll on the sixth hole, and peacocks that occasionally preen atop a parked Rolls-Royce. Oprah Winfrey, Mel Brooks and the financier Martin Zweig are just a few boldface names who have called Fisher Island home.
But even here, a haven for wealthy families since the late 1980s, the economic storms are bearing down. About a quarter of the island’s 695 condos are up for sale, roughly double the number on the market in recent years, and few are finding buyers. Sellers are cutting prices, brokers say, and one unit is in foreclosure, a surprise to some residents of a place where home prices range from $335,000 to $30 million. . . .
That diversity was in full view at the beach club one morning, where guests were speaking English, Spanish and Russian. The crowd ranged from sedate grandparents surrounded by a clutch of family members to fit young men in $200 Vilebrequin swimsuits.
When the economy was soaring, few worried about the high cost of living here. But the downturn has created tension, and many residents are trying to rein in spending.
That’s tough to do when you live in a place where the board of the country club recently approved a plan to spend $60 million in upgrades. That has caused some tenants, like Mr. Goodwin, whose annual expenses run to $80,000 for a 720-square-foot home, to put his property up for sale.
Counting taxes, insurance, condo fees, club dues and expenses for island upkeep, the annual carrying costs of a condo on Fisher Island can range from $60,000 to nearly $300,000.
To Joe Zammit-Lucia, who recently created The Fisher Island Voice, such fees did not bother people during the halcyon days of a booming economy. “There was an underlying testosterone-laden arrogance,” says Mr. Zammit-Lucia, a native of England who founded a medical consulting business with his wife, which they later sold. They live on the island for much of the year. . . .
Still, some of the island’s premier properties are for sale. Bruce McMahan, a hedge fund executive, has put his 7,300-square-foot condominium, which he used exclusively to entertain business associates, on the market, along with all its art, for $30 million.
Its walls are covered with copies of paintings from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The paintings were done by a team brought over from Russia by Mr. McMahan, who heads the Argent Funds Group. There is also a collection of Fabergé eggs and boxes and [?] original correspondence from the Romanov family, which ruled imperial Russia, all housed in what is called the “Romanov bedroom.” Two Rodin sculptures adorn a terrace that fronts the ocean and is guarded by a German shepherd. . . .
More info here. ("According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Fisher Island had the highest per capita income of any place in the United States in 2000.")
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