Seven sales, $220 million: global trophy trades from Q2 2025
This edition of our regular significant-sales reports tracks seven big-ticket closings across five time zones, each illustrating where capital – and sentiment – flowed in the run-up to the second half of 2025.
Montecito master George Washington Smith drafted the 17,000-square-foot Spanish Colonial Revival residence in 1925 for retired distillery baron Henry Kern. (Carolwood Estates)
Beverly Hills estate splits for record-setting total
The $86 million banner figure for a recently sold estate once owned by singer Rod Stewart suggests one blockbuster deal, yet county ledgers tell a two-act narrative. Two deeds, filed five days apart, parceled the Beverly Hills spread into separate closings: $57 million for the lion’s share, $29 million for the smaller, yet still impressive remainder. The larger transfer, nearly four acres, centers on a 1925 Spanish-Colonial masterwork, sold through Drew Fenton of Carolwood Estates. Inside, almost 17,000 square feet march through hand-carved beams, cloistered loggias and terraces that survey Benedict Canyon.
Stack the two sums together and the estate vaults past Beverly Hills’ previous 2025 peak – the $51.25 million sale of a Napa-style villa brokered by fellow Carolwood agent Linda May. That earlier property had traded for just $8.55 million in 2006, an appreciation that pencils out to roughly $2 million per year.
Brisk pre-sales at the forthcoming Bulgari Lighthouse underscore the vigor of Dubai’s ultra-luxury off-plan market. (Driven Properties | Forbes Global Properties)
Last two Bulgari Lighthouse penthouses command AED 282 million
What price does scarcity command? At Dubai’s forthcoming Bulgari Lighthouse – still two years from completion – the answer is AED 282 million (roughly $77 million) for the final pair of sky-level residences. A five-bedroom, 11,657-square-foot aerie wrapped in glass and teak set the higher watermark at AED 146.6 million, its sibling following closely behind at AED 136.25 million.
“Scarcity drives value. With fewer than 40 residences in the tower, and amenities that rival a private resort, Lighthouse is arguably the most coveted address in Dubai,” notes Kianoush Darban, who, alongside Driven | Forbes Global Properties colleague Lina Allaoa, brokered both deals.
The sales underscore Dubai’s unabated momentum at the ultra-prime tip of the market. April posted an all-time monthly record of AED 62.4 billion in overall transactions – up 95 percent year-on-year – and analysts expect headline numbers to climb further through 2025 as genuine trophy inventory remains in short supply.
The singular design by the late, celebrated Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta and his son Víctor Legorreta demanded an equally bold sales strategy: the auction block. (Hawai'i Life)
Auction accelerates Maui’s top-end tempo
For 11 brisk days, Maui’s signature calm ceded to gavel chatter. Casa en Maui – a study in volume, shadow and saturated color by the late Ricardo Legorreta, finished under his son Víctor – sold for $28.56 million, the island’s priciest deal of 2025, and lightning-fast by local-market standards.
The Keawakapu Beach compound had logged barely two months on the market, a sprint compared with 2024’s 339-day luxury average. Spread across just under an acre, the residence layers eight ensuite bedrooms around double-height salons whose glass walls dissolve into lanais, courtyards and a 75-foot lap pool that reads like a cobalt brushstroke.
Concierge Auctions ran the sale along with listing agents Matt Beall and Josh Jerman of Hawai‘i Life, fielding 15 qualified registered bidders – a deep bench for Maui’s ultra-prime bracket. Market watchers now eye nearby Makena, wondering whether this hammer price will reset shoreline expectations.
Turnkey waterfront estates like this one signal Jupiter Island’s rapid ascent as a billionaire haven – and its appetite for pristine, move-in-ready homes. (Illustrated Properties)
Oceanfront estate on Jupiter Island nets near a quarter-million
Palm Beach headlines often drown out quieter barrier islands, yet a brand-new estate on Jupiter Island proves wealth is still migrating north along A1A, slipping into the ledger at $24.3 million – more than double the town’s already-lofty $9.35 million average. The 8,500-square-foot residence offers seven ensuite bedrooms, whole-house automation and that coveted new-paint finish buyers now pay to preserve. Since the pandemic, buyers with no appetite for drywall dust have paid premiums for turnkey stock. But the real premium is place: 150 feet of direct Atlantic frontage.
Prices here now hover near eight figures as a matter of course, inviting a question: will Florida’s billionaire belt keep inching north? If momentum holds, sleepier dunes like Vero Beach may soon bristle with cranes and construction crews.
Credit for the curated coastal sale goes to Illustrated Properties’ Jeanne deSanctis and Stephanie Meeker.
With deals now cresting the $5 million mark, Fenwick Island is stepping onto Delaware’s premier shoreline podium beside long-favored Rehoboth. (Long & Foster Real Estate)
Bay-front sale signals Fenwick Island’s full-time growth
Delaware’s beach towns have long served the weekend set – an easy escape for Philadelphia and Washington commuters – but a recent string of seven-figure closings suggests that transient rhythm may be slowing to a resident’s beat. Normally overshadowed by glossier coastal neighbors, Fenwick Island set its own pace with a $5.95 million bay-front sale – $300,000 over ask and nearly triple its 2015 trading price.
The cedar-shingled, gambrel-roofed 6,500-square-foot house looks borrowed from Cape Cod, then pivoted toward Mid-Atlantic sunsets. Resting on a 0.82-acre peninsula overlooking Little Assawoman Bay, it offers 270-degree water views and a dock outfitted with a high-speed lift plus cradles for four personal watercraft.
Guiding the Cape-Cod-meets-Delaware haven safely to harbor was Leslie Kopp of Long & Foster Real Estate.
Steps from Vail's Eagle Bahn Gondola, this alpine penthouse already perches high enough to frame the slopes with commanding mountain views. (Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate)
Penthouse lifts Vail’s average to new heights
A $17.6 million transfer brokered by Rachel Viele of Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate atop the Arrabelle at Vail Square quietly lifted Colorado’s Eagle County mean sale price to $3.61 million – 15% higher than a year ago. The 4,000-square-foot penthouse blankets the entire seventh floor, trading skyscraper bravado for slope-level intimacy. Glass-walled living areas frame Game Creek Bowl while a roof-deck pool sends steam into evening alpenglow.
Vail has always been a second-home market, and the unit’s service roster reads accordingly, like a vacation checklist: overnight ski tuning, fridge-stocking, 24-hour concierge. The result is a pleasingly hybrid offer: hotel-style service wrapped in single-ownership privacy – a proven formula for Colorado’s ski towns.
The forthcoming Frontgate Avon aims to amplify this formula, dangling Vail’s largest hot tub (room for 35), an aquatics center, golf simulators, a state-of-the-art gym and a residents-only shuttle to the lifts.
Classic low-profile midcentury-modern rooflines and sweeping Pacific panoramas keep this La Jolla residence perennially compelling. (Lucas Parodi for Willis Allen Real Estate)
Midcentury modern’s eternal appeal instantly captivates in La Jolla, California
In the wake of a post-war construction boom, mid-century modernism washed over La Jolla in the 1960s and ’70s, its glassy façades perfectly calibrated to frame the Pacific horizon. One of the era’s stylish holdouts – a hillside residence by Frederick Liebhardt, a Frank Lloyd Wright protégé – has just traded for just under $7 million after just one day on the market, underscoring that half a century on, the architectural language of volume, light, wood and view still speaks fluently to today’s buyers. Tim Nelson and Drew Nelson of Willis Allen Real Estate represented the sellers.
The property’s midcentury cues are unmistakable – flat roof, geometric lines, walls of glass, a sunken conversation pit and a fireplace veneered in rough-hewn stone. Every room is wrapped in radiant timber, giving the interiors the warmth of a vintage stereo cabinet turned room-size. From its perch above La Jolla Country Club, the home takes in a layered view of fairways, coastal bluffs and ocean.
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