Star Island

Few addresses in American real estate command the numbers Star Island does. Most estates trade somewhere between $30 million and $100 million, and the upper end reaches considerably higher still. Because the entire island holds just 34 properties, a listing surfaces rarely enough that every closing registers as a market event.

The list of former residents runs through Gloria Estefan, Diddy, and Rosie O'Donnell, joined by technology and finance moguls who come for the total privacy and the secured perimeter.

A private guarded bridge screens every arrival at Star Island twenty-four hours a day, and the island stays off-limits to the public. Only residents and the guests they invite may pass through. Anyone hoping to glimpse the mansions usually does so from the water, since Miami boat tours routinely cruise past the shoreline.

What distinguishes Star Island is a mix almost no other place can reproduce: only 34 estates laid out over an 86-acre man-made island, one privately guarded entry, deep-water waterfront lots equipped to berth mega-yachts, and a setting minutes from South Beach that remains entirely closed off from it.

You will find nothing but single-family homes on Star Island. Each one is a freestanding estate set on a waterfront lot that generally runs beyond 40,000 square feet. Nowhere on the island are there condominiums, townhomes, or any multi-unit buildings.