Lauren Sturges sold her waterfront Tahiti Beach mansion for $32 million, marking a price record for the gated Coral Gables neighborhood.
Records show Sturges, the widow of businessman Charles M. Fernandez, sold the house at 12 Tahiti Beach Island Road to a trust named for the address. Dora Puig with Luxe LIving Realty had the listing. Alex Pirez, the broker and owner of Mocca Realty, represented the buyer.
Pirez is also a spec developer known for luxury projects in the Miami area. Last year he sold a mansion in Coral Gables for a record $55 million.
Fernandez was the CEO of the ecommerce firm NextPlat from 2021 until his death last year. Lauren Sturges is also on the company’s board of directors.
The couple bought the Tahiti Beach Island Road estate in 2008 for $9.2 million, according to property records. The 10,400-square-foot mansion was built on 0.9 acres in 1994 and includes six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, two half-bathrooms, a pool and a dock, records and the listing show.
They listed it for $20 million in 2017. The sale fell $8 million short of the $40 million Sturges listed it for in March, according to Zillow.
The price is 248 percent more than the property’s last trade, and it tops the price record for Tahiti Beach, a neighborhood within the gated Cocoplum community in Coral Gables. William McKinley Osborne III, a former investment banker set the previous record in 2021 when he bought a 1.4-acre beachfront estate for $28.9 million.
Coral Gables has emerged as a hub of ultra-luxury home sales in recent years.
Australian billionaire Michael Dorrell sold his waterfront estate in the enclave for $35 million last month. In October, the Weeknd bought a waterfront compound in Gables Estates for $50 million. John Ruiz, the CEO of MSP Recovery and a major donor to the University of Miami, listed a 2.2-acre Gables Estates compound for $175 million in February.
