The Florida city of Naples just landed its own real-estate mystery: Someone quietly dropped $311 million to stitch together close to 19 waterfront acres on Gordon Drive, without ever even walking the land, according to brokers. The Wall Street Journal reports that the unknown buyer or buyers, using a land trust and rigid NDAs, first paid Canada's DeGroote family $225 million for 15 acres in 2025, then added the neighboring 3.7-acre Stayer property for $86 million a little more than a year later. The secretive new ownership has also applied for demolition permits for the Port Royal properties, per the Real Deal. "Something is coming to that stretch of Port Royal," says Yasmin Saad of the Saad Team real estate group. "I do not know what yet, but I am watching it."
The combined price puts the future compound among the most expensive private residential properties in the country, in the same league as Ken Griffin's Palm Beach spread and Jeff Bezos' holdings on Indian Creek Island, per the Journal. The deal also signals how Naples, long the quieter cousin to Miami and Palm Beach, is being remade by ultra-wealthy buyers competing for waterfront compounds. Gordon Drive alone has seen more than $1 billion in sales since 2020, with average prices soaring and another massive family estate, Gordon Pointe, now asking $271 million. Naples comes in at No. 4 on Realtor.com's 10 priciest metro luxury markets. For the full backstory on the rival billionaire listings and Naples' shifting status, more here.
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