Music industry powerhouse and multifaceted entrepreneur Pharrell reportedly paid around $30 million for a nearly 3.5-acre waterfront estate in posh Coral Gables, Florida, a 30-to-35-minute journey from South Beach, Miami. Former Univision executive Ray Rodriguez and his wife, Liana, were very eager to sell their high-maintenance estate, El Palmar, according to listings held by Dennis Carvajal at ONE Sotheby’s Int’l Realty. This was first reported by the New York Post, which was the first to learn of the transaction. The reported transaction price represents a staggering 33% discount from the property’s obscene (and never reduced) $45 million price tag when it was first listed for sale approximately 1.5 years ago.
According to the rumour, Pharrell had been searching for a South Florida property for quite some time and moved swiftly to acquire El Palmar because he intends to quarantine there. (After much hand-wringing and criticism, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, issued a stay-at-home order on April 1st.)
An impressively gated drive sweeps through lush and mature tropical gardens designed by appropriately named landscape architect Raymond Jungles before passing under a porte-cochere to an enclosed motor court surrounded by the two-story, Plantation-style mansion, a spacious detached guesthouse, and garage bays for five or more cars. The sprawling compound’s living spaces encompass more than 17,000 square feet, with a total of nine bedrooms and 11.5 bathrooms distributed throughout the main house, guesthouse, and boathouse. These living spaces were conceived by renowned local architect Cesar Molina.
The main residence is entered through a foyer with gleaming parquet floors, a double-height ceiling, and not one but two gracefully curving staircases leading to the second floor. (There is also a lift for those who are too indolent or unable to climb the twenty-plus steps.) The formal living and dining rooms, the former with a fireplace and the latter with capacity for twelve, are complemented by a bar room and a spacious, richly panelled library/den with a fireplace and a built-in entertainment system. Multiple dishwashers, extensive prep areas, and full-sized refrigerators and freezers are to be expected in a home of this price and size. The kitchen is colossal, yet cosy, with a breakfast area that opens to the gardens through nearly floor-to-ceiling French doors. One of the larger guest bedrooms on the second floor opens to a veranda overlooking the backyard, while the master suite features a private study, a large bedroom that opens to a private veranda, and a somewhat unexpectedly contemporary, almost minimalist bathroom.
Along the entire length of the rear of the house, a deep loggia with ample lounging and dining areas opens to a vast coral rock terrace and a massive swimming pool. Alongside the pool is an open-air pavilion with an outdoor kitchen, and beyond the pool are expansive lawns bordered by palm trees. A small tropical jungle conceals the estate’s private 110-foot inlet for mooring boats, and the adjacent boathouse, which features a large covered porch, is completed to the same standard as the main house with lustrous, exotic wood floorboards and a professional bar.
This is not the first time the 13-time Grammy-winning hip-hop mogul has owned a lavishly expensive South Florida property. After selling a Miami Beach penthouse for $8.45 million in 2007, he paid $12.525 million for a nearly 9,100-square-foot, triplex penthouse atop Miami’s Bristol Towers, which he subsequently sold for $9.35 million in 2015, a loss of more than $3 million. The property portfolio of the multihyphenate includes at least two eye-popping homes in Los Angeles, including a colossal, green-glass mansion in the Beverly Hills Post Office area that he purchased from Tyler Perry two years ago for $15.6 million and put up for sale earlier this year for nearly $17 million. According to tax documents, Pharrell also possesses a number of modest residential properties in Virginia Beach, Virginia, as well as a not-so-modest gated waterfront estate anchored by a 9,000-square-foot mansion he purchased for $1.85 million in 2001.
