Broward palace to get a royal tax bill this year
HILLSBORO BEACH — South Florida’s most expensive single-family home has a fitting name — Le Palais Royal — and is about to get a $1.5 million property tax bill to match.
The Mediterranean-revival style home comes with 11 bedrooms, 15 full bathrooms, four half-baths, the world’s first home IMAX theater, a $4 million infinity pool, a $2 million grand staircase, an airconditioned parking garage for up to 10 cars, and a 492-foot private dock that can accommodate a 200-foot yacht.
And gold leaf. Lots of 22-carat gold leaf. More than $3 million worth of it. On the front gates, the circular banister, the doors, the crown molding and even the
kitchen cabinets.
“It does have a large amount — an overwhelming amount — of gold throughout the property,” senior appraiser Robert Zbikowski said. “It’s on everything.”
Property Appraiser Marty Kiar dubbed the estate Broward County’s Mara-Lago, but President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion and club with its $23.1 million market value is not in the same league.
The “royal palace” with a Hillsboro Beach address is going on Broward County’s tax rolls for the first time this year, with the property’s market value pegged at $85.1 million. The building and improvements on the estate at 935 Hillsboro Mile are assessed at $73.4 million, more than twice as high as any other home in South Florida.
Miami-Dade County did not have a residential property with a higher market value as of last year. This year’s values were not available.
Palm Beach County had two — in Palm Beach and Manalapan. But most of the value in those two properties is in the land. The Palm Beach property, valued at $116.4 million, is vacant land, while the Manalapan home accounts for only $22.5 million of its property’s $95.1 million total market value.
The Hillsboro Beach home is owned by Robert Pereira, president of The Middlesex Corp., a construction company based in Massachusetts. It has been under construction for eight years. He declined to comment when contacted Thursday.
Hillsboro Beach Mayor Deb Tarrant and her town have been eagerly awaiting the roughly $250,000 in new town taxes the home will generate. It is like nothing else in town or South Florida, she said.
“It’s magnificent. It is beyond. It’s got security features that a wealthy oil sheikh would appreciate,” Tarrant said. “It’s completely over the top.”
At one time, the home was the most expensive listed on the nation’s real estate market, at $159 million. It is not on the market now, and a second phase — which was supposed to include two guest houses, an ice skating rink, go-cart track, bowling alley and nightclub — on an adjacent property has not been built.
Tarrant said the property should have been on the tax rolls two years ago. Kiar said his office doesn’t consider a building complete until it has passed its electrical, mechanical and plumbing final inspections, which weren’t done in time for last year’s rolls.
Even now, Pereira has told the town and the appraiser’s office that there are electrical issues on the property that could pose safety hazards and that the town should not have approved the electrical finals yet. Town officials say they are standing by their decision and Kiar said he’s not planning to change the value placed on the property.
The property still does not have a certificate of occupancy that would allow Pereira or anyone else to move in.
The hang-up: Turtle lighting, which is required to keep from having lights disturb nesting turtles that come ashore and turtle hatchlings heading out to sea.
“Some people think the rules don’t apply to them,” Tarrant said. “They won’t get the C.O. until that issue is resolved … They cannot use the property without a C.O.”