In 2020, a Miami developer bought a waterfront lot for $7.525 million and built a 9,600-square-foot family home; in 2025, he sold it for $60 million soon after moving in

A Miami real-estate developer spent four years turning a waterfront lot into a custom-built family home, only to sell it for $60 million shortly after moving in. According to The Wall Street Journal, James Curnin, founder of Miami-based Clara Homes, and his wife, Jennifer Halegua, bought the roughly 0.4-acre parcel on La Gorce Island in Miami Beach for $7.525 million in 2020. They built a 9,600-square-foot residence for themselves and moved in during autumn 2024, but began receiving offers from prospective buyers soon afterwards. The property eventually sold for $60 million to Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch and Arrington Capital.From vacant lot to custom-built mansionIn 2020, Curnin and Halegua bought the lot on La Gorce Island, and Curnin built a house specifically designed for his family over the next four years. Construction of the house was completed in autumn 2024, and the couple moved into their new residence. This completed house has about 9,600 square feet of living space and sits directly on the waterfront. The house consists of five bedrooms along with two extra rooms for the staff. The house includes a swimming pool, lift, gym, sauna and steam room.Building rather than buying an existing mansion also shows how valuable land is in high-end property development. Research published in the Journal of Housing Economics has examined how urban land values can be separated from the value contributed by structures, showing why the underlying site can remain an important component of a property's overall worth. For Curnin, however, the house was initially intended as a family residence rather than a speculative development. That distinction would become important when buyers began approaching him almost immediately after the project was completed.A home that attracted buyers before it was listedThe property had never been marketed before the sale. Rather, as stated in The Wall Street Journal, it was when he completed the house that Curnin started getting calls from buyers about his house. The report says he was getting calls about once a week from people wanting to see the house. The interest stemmed from the rarity of newly built waterfront homes in one of Miami Beach’s prime residential areas.Later, real estate agent Jordan Karp contacted Curnin with an offer. Curnin was ready to turn it down, but he was urged to name a price that might change his mind. He named $65 million to test how serious the buyer was. The client negotiated and bought the property for $60 million.From a $7.525 million lot to a $60 million saleThe Wall Street Journal also notes that the transaction created a striking contrast between the property's original land purchase and its eventual sale price. Curnin and Halegua paid $7.525 million for the lot in 2020, while the completed home changed hands for $60 million four years later. It also reflects the cost of building the 9,600-square-foot residence and its amenities, plus the premium attached to a newly completed waterfront property in Miami Beach.For Arrington, the deal added another premium Miami property to his portfolio. Arrington bought the house after it was finished, avoiding the construction process the previous owners went through. For Curnin, the sale was harder to accept. He had planned and constructed this house specifically for his family, moving in only at the end of last year. Even though the deal yielded millions in profit, leaving this custom-made house was hard for him.The deal is an unusual example of a developer buying an empty waterfront lot, building a custom home, living there briefly and then accepting an unexpected $60 million offer. What began in 2020 as a family plan to build a home became a striking Miami Beach example of how much more a finished luxury house can be worth than the land alone.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.