A South Florida coffee baron sold his Cocoplum mansion for $16M
The inheritor of the historically Cuban coffee empire Rowland Coffee Roasters — think Café Bustelo and Café Pilon — sold his Tahiti Beach mansion on Friday.
Jose E. Souto sold his 14,899-square-foot home at 23 Tahiti Beach Island Road for $16 million. The two-story home sits on a 45,337-square-foot lot with 145 feet of waterfront. It has seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms and a half bath. Souto bought the property in 2011 for $5.15 million and subsequently built his estate. The home includes a 2,500-bottle wine cellar, movie screening room, poker room, gym, sauna and pool.
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices EWM Realty’s Isabel Castro and Maria Bradley represented the buyer and seller.
“The sale gives me confidence that the market here is solid,” said Ron Shuffield, president and chief executive officer of BHHS EWM Realty.
Castro said in a press release: “It’s a testament to the strength of our market, sustained interest in the unparalleled lifestyle that’s offered here, and ongoing traction among our most prized properties.”
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The home was listed for about $24 million in February 2018 with One Sotheby’s International. BHHS EWM Realty took hold of the listing in January 2019. It went under contract in February.
“It is not uncommon for houses of this price and size to take this amount of time to sell and see these type of reductions,” Shuffield said.
Souto sold Rowland Coffee Roasters to J.M. Smucker in 2011 for $360 million.
The home closed for $1,074 per square foot, less than the most recent comparable sales. Nearby, a 8,305-square-foot waterfront home, constructed in 1994, at 20 Tahiti Beach Island Road sold for $1,361 per square foot, or $11.3 million, in September 2019.
“We still have more pent-up demand for luxury housing in Miami, now more than ever,” Shuffield said.
The months of supply for homes priced over $1 million in Miami-Dade County moved downward over the past two quarters, Shuffield said. The number of luxury sales during the first quarter of 2020 increased by 19% from the same period one year earlier, to 243 sales of single-family homes during the first quarter of 2020.
The optimum balance of the luxury market is 12 to 18 months of supply for single-family homes and condos priced over $1 million. The fourth quarter 2019 had 20 months of supply for single-family homes and 42 months for condos. The first quarter 2020 had 17 months of supply for single-family homes and 30 months for condos. Tax flight and lifestyle are driving demand for luxury housing in South Florida, Shuffield said.
The gated Coral Gables community Tahiti Beach is located in the Cocoplum community. Cocoplum has attracted a multitude of celebrity homeowners, including singers Cher and Marc Anthony.
This story was originally published May 1, 2020 at 10:00 PM.
