Billionaire Ken Griffin, now a resident of Miami, floats controversial idea to relocate historic mansion

When billionaire Ken Griffin, founder of hedge fund company Citadel LLC, was a permanent Chicago resident, he was known for owning high-profile residential real estate, including prominent penthouse-level condos in the Park Tower, the Waldorf Astoria and the building at 9 W. Walton St.

Now Griffin, who moved to Miami last year, is making real estate news in Florida, where he’s floating the idea of physically relocating a historic mansion once owned by onetime U.S. Secretary of State and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. The proposal has some local preservationists worried.

“Moving a historic structure is absolutely a last resort solution, to be done only if (there) is no other way possible to save a structure,” Kathleen Slesnick Kauffman, Miami’s former historic preservation officer, wrote in an text message to the Tribune. “It is not a preservation-minded alternative just because someone bought it and now doesn’t want it.”

At issue is the fate of Villa Serena, a 5,200-square-foot Mediterranean-style home that was built in 1913 for Bryan and that today is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Villa Serena is one of the homes on a 4.19-acre waterfront estate in Miami’s Coconut Grove area that Griffin purchased in August for $106.87 million, a local record. Griffin purchased the estate after announcing plans to relocate Citadel’s headquarters and his own family to South Florida due to crime in Chicago.

Griffin’s new waterfront estate contains three residential structures: a main 12,000-square-foot mansion known as Indian Spring, the historic Villa Serena mansion and a two-bedroom guesthouse atop a three-car garage. Griffin has let it be known that he is interested in relocating the Mediterranean-style Villa Serena mansion from the property, a move that would also make the home accessible to the public.

Griffin and his representatives are “still exploring (the) feasibility” of such a move, and no site for a relocated Villa Serena has yet been identified, Citadel spokesman Zia Ahmed told the Tribune in an email. “Ken’s team is exploring potential options wherein the general public would for the first time be able to visit and see this historic home at a different location. This is just an idea in the very early stages right now. If the idea materializes, it will go through all the required formal governmental approval processes.”

Ahmed also said Griffin “has a long record of sharing the history of our country.” Griffin bought a copy of the Constitution last year that had been held in private hands and put it on display at the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas.

Among the government approvals that Griffin would need would be permission from Miami’s Historic and Environmental Preservation Board, or HEPB, which reviews applications based on standards outlined by the U.S. secretary of the interior. If the board approves the plan, the house move could go forward. If not, Griffin could appeal that decision to the Miami City Commission.

In a statement, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez expressed general support for Griffin’s proposal.

“The idea that the public could visit this historic house for the first time and for generations to come is incredible,” Suarez said. “The citizens of Miami, South Florida and visitors from all over the world would be able to appreciate firsthand its significance and beauty, so we hope this project moves forward.”

But Kauffman questioned the logic behind moving a home so that more people can access it.

“Our local governments have proven time and time again that proper maintenance and care of their own historic buildings is a challenge, even on their best days,” she texted. Kauffman also wrote that “moving a private structure so that more people can have access to it is simply not good preservation practice or standards.”

Historic homes can be difficult to move for any kind of distance through relatively densely populated areas, because of the necessity of relocating overhead wires, removing vegetation along the route and having to avoid underpasses. And finding an appropriate site relatively close by could be expensive.

Griffin purchased Villa Serena from businesswoman and philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, who first bought the land on which she built her Indian Spring mansion, which was designed two decades ago by architect Jose Gelabert-Navia. Villa Serena, just next door, was listed for sale in 2007 and was slated to be demolished at that time to make way for some new homes. So Arsht, who had developed a fondness for Villa Serena, stepped in to buy it for $12 million, and set out on a four-year restoration of the vintage mansion at a cost of several million dollars, according to a 2022 Wall Street Journal article.

Arsht, who used Villa Serena as a guesthouse, also repaired a sea wall and dock that had fallen into disrepair.

Arsht told the Wall Street Journal in 2014 that Villa Serena “looked like something out of Sleeping Beauty. That was also the good thing … nobody had touched it.”

While Villa Serena’s architect is unknown, a historic preservation report prepared for the city of Miami in 2007 noted that Bryan bought the land in 1912, and had the mansion built the following year. Bryan’s wife, Mary, patterned Villa Serena after an old Spanish castle, according to that 2007 historic preservation report.

Bryan died in 1925, and his family sold the home in 1932 to an heir to the Maxwell House coffee fortune who owned it and lived in it until his death in 1970.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Arsht expressed support for relocating Villa Serena, noting that she felt that the actual home itself matters more than its precise location.

Griffin is pledging hiring top-notch professionals to study this idea.

“If Ken were to move it (remember, this is just an idea), the utmost care and every precaution will be taken, and he will not undertake it unless he is sure it could be moved safely,” Ahmed said. “We are hiring the best engineers to evaluate before making any decisions on whether or how to move. Everything will be carefully planned, monitored and undertaken with extreme care and caution.”

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

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