This $295M Florida estate the priciest home for sale in the US

Real Estate

By Hannah Frishberg

In Naples, Florida, a sprawling waterfront compound has hit the market for a potentially record-breaking $295 million.

If it sells for anywhere close to that stratospheric asking price, the deal will take the crown as the priciest residential sale the United States has ever seen. Specifically, it would surpass the record set by hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who paid roughly $240 million for a combination penthouse at 220 Central Park South in Manhattan in early 2019.

The new US residential record contender boasts a tropical retreat at the far edge of a peninsula in the posh Port Royal neighborhood, as well as a colorful backstory, the Wall Street Journal first reported.

The financier John Donahue reportedly saw the then-undeveloped stretch of land, known as Gordon Pointe, while flying over it and declared “I want to go there” to his wife, Rhodora Donahue. 

In 1985, he did just that, purchasing the then-4.3-acre lot for $1 million.

He proceeded to build up the property from a mangrove-surrounded fishing cottage into a 60-acre haven. But its pièce de résistance — and what’s listed for sale — is a portion spanning 9 acres, complete with 1,650 feet of waterfront, three houses and a private yacht basin with a T-shaped dock.

As for those homes, they’re quite grand. The Donahues first began with a roughly 11,500-square-foot house with six bedrooms and a screened-in pool. The second residence, built in 1990, has some 5,500 square feet with five bedrooms and an outdoor pool. In 2013, a new structure popped up, that one with 5,800 square feet.

John and Rhodora — high school sweethearts married for 70 years — passed away in 2017 and 2022 respectively. Their 13 children, each of whom hold a seat on the board of the family office, feel that though “we’ve all enjoyed” the grand retreat, “it’s more or less time to move on,” their son Bill Donahue told the Journal. (It also wasn’t just for family; the Journal notes the couple also hosted President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush.)

Although the siblings grew up having gatherings at the Naples estate, times have changed.

In the years since, they and the Donahue clan’s 84 grandchildren and 175 great-grandchildren have come to host reunions on a 500-acre Pennsylvania farm, far closer to the headquarters of John’s Pittsburgh-based investment-management firm, Federated Investors. 

The property is being brought to market by Coldwell Banker Realty’s Dawn McKenna Group, in partnership with the Leighton Candler Team of Corcoran and Savills’ Rory McMullen. 

The sale has been rumored since at least 2017.

The sky-high asking price, agents told the Journal, is merited based on the compound’s size, location as well as the reality that it would be extremely challenging to round up such a large, prime plot of Florida real estate today.