Three for $93 Million: A Tech Founder Is Purchasing a Trio of Homes in Florida’s Golden Beach

Three homes on the ocean in Golden Beach, Fla., are selling for a combined price of roughly $93 million, according to agents involved in the deal. Taken as a single transaction, the deal will set a price record for Golden Beach and for the entire Miami area, the agents said. 

The buyer is Phillip Ragon, founder of the technology company InterSystems, according to people familiar with the sale. Mr. Ragon purchased a separate property on Golden Beach last year for nearly $20 million, according to a person familiar with that sale. Mr. Ragon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Two of the deals have closed, while a third is slated to close next week. 

The three properties—located about 20 miles from downtown Miami—span a total of roughly 1.7 acres with about 275 feet of ocean frontage. The purchaser plans to raze all three residences, which are relatively modest beach houses, and replace them with a new single-family home, according to agents Danny Hertzberg and Jon Mann of the Jills Zeder Group at Coldwell Banker Realty, who were involved in the sale but declined to comment on the buyer’s identity.

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Only one of the homes was on the market at the time of the sale, and the agents said the transaction is the result of a roughly yearlong effort by the buyer to piece together a large piece of property with significant ocean frontage in Golden Beach, a tiny community sandwiched between the Intracoastal Waterway and Atlantic Ocean. It involved negotiations with three separate sellers, some of whom were reluctant to part with their property, the agents said.

The sellers include fashion photographer Bruce Weber and his wife and collaborator, Nan Bush, who bought their home for $3 million in 2002, records show. Their home, a six-bedroom, roughly 4,800-square-foot beach house, was listed in January for $25 million with Pablo Alfaro of Douglas Elliman, according to Zillow, though Mr. Hertzberg and Mr. Mann said their negotiations with the sellers predated the listing. Mr. Weber and Ms. Bush didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The other sellers are listed in public records as Mitchell and Lori Grabois and Silverlane Rlty Inc. It wasn’t clear what the Graboises originally paid for their property, but the Silverlane property last sold for $3.636 million in 2003, records show. Neither Silverlane Rlty nor the Graboises could be immediately reached for comment.

Mr. Ragon founded InterSystems in 1978, according to the company’s website. In 2008, he helped create the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, a research center.

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The deal illustrates the lengths to which buyers will go to assemble significant oceanfront parcels in the area, the agents said. 

 “There are very few sellers, so to find two or three properties together was almost impossible,” Mr. Hertzberg said. “We had various different combinations we were trying to figure out.”

Mr. Hertzberg and Mr. Mann worked on the deal with Eloy Carmenate and Mick Duchon of the Corcoran Group.

While Golden Beach homes have historically sold for less than those in Miami Beach and Palm Beach, the community has drawn big-name residents like Tommy Hilfiger and Ricky Martin. This transaction is “definitely going to put Golden Beach on the map in a big way,” Mr. Hertzberg said.

The deal will likely be a boon to the sellers of another high-profile Golden Beach home. Last month, a large property that was long owned by late Craig Electronics founder Joel Newman and his wife, Edith Newman, hit the market for $100 million. Until now, nothing in Golden Beach has sold for even close to that price point, records show. 

The previous record for Miami-Dade County was set last year by the $75 million purchase of a home on Star Island by hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who already owned parcels on Star Island.