PALM BEACH, Fla. — Billionaire Larry Ellison, recently ranked the eighth richest person in the world by Forbes, spent $173 million of his fortune buying a Florida estate in Manalapan, a wealthy city south of Palm Beach. The transaction marks the largest home sale of all time in Florida.
Ellison bought the Ocean-to-Lake property — and part of nearby Bird Island — from a trust controlled by another software billionaire, Jim Clark. In total, the estate and its island measure more than 22 acres.
Ellison used a limited liability company to purchase the Manalapan property, according to the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Network.
The country has been in the hands of the extremely rich for years. Clark bought the property in 2021 from the billionaire Ziff family, who made their fortunes in publishing and investing.
Historically known as the Gemini, the property is bisected by a coastal road. The two parts of the main house — one overlooking the lake and the other overlooking the sea — are connected by a series of tunnels under the street, including one that serves as a foyer and art gallery.
With dense vegetation, the property has approximately 1,200 feet of beach frontage and approximately 1,300 feet of waterfront on the irregularly shaped side facing the Intracoastal Waterway.
Together, the main house and several outbuildings offer almost 85,000 square feet of living space, indoors and out, with 33 bedrooms, 34 bathrooms and 13 powder rooms.
The park-like property includes a PGA standard golf driving range, regular tennis court, half basketball court, freshwater pond, 18-hole miniature golf course, boat dock, bird sanctuary and butterfly garden. All of these items were in place when Clark’s trustees bought the property.
So who is Larry Ellison? Here’s a look at the billionaire.
How rich is Larry Ellison?
On June 22, the day of the Florida sale’s deed, Forbes estimated the 77-year-old’s net worth at $93.6 billion.
How did Larry Ellison get his fortune?
Ellison co-founded Oracle Corp in 1977. along with two partners in Santa Clara, California. Today, the software powerhouse bills itself as the world’s largest database management company. Ellison was CEO for 37 years and still holds the titles of chairman and chief technology officer for the Austin, Texas-based company. His stake in the company is about 35 percent, according to Forbes.
So far:As he steps down from Oracle, here are Larry Ellison’s titanic moments
Larry Ellison’s connections to Tesla
Among Ellison’s most high-profile stock purchases was investing heavily in his billionaire friend Elon Musk’s Tesla, joining the company’s board of directors in 2018. This month Tesla announced that Ellison would step down from the board.
Did Larry Ellison go to college?
Yes, but he didn’t graduate. According to Bloomberg and other published reports, he dropped out of college at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Where is Larry Ellison from and where does he live?
A native of New York City from the Bronx, Ellison has lived in the Chicago area and in California. But he has said his primary residence is on the island of Lanai in Hawaii. He reportedly paid $300 million for almost the entire island 10 years ago. He has also bought homes in Newport, Rhode Island and California.
Larry Ellison’s Politics: Report links him to post-election strategy talk with Trump
On May 20, The Washington Post and other outlets reported that Ellison, who has supported former President Donald Trump and conservative causes, attended a November 14, 2020 call with Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) and others “which focused on strategies to challenge the legitimacy of voting” in the November 3, 2020 presidential election. The Post cited court documents and “a participant” as sources.
The call, according to the Post, is “the first known example of a tech industry titan joining powerful figures in conservative politics, media and law in strategizing Trump’s post-loss options.”
Other participants in the call included Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow and attorney James Bopp Jr., who represented True the Vote, a nonprofit group that has “promoted controversial claims of widespread voter fraud,” according to the Post. Ellison and Oracle did not respond to requests for comment, the Post reported.
Larry Ellison’s Charitable Efforts
Among his philanthropic initiatives, in 2016 he donated $200 million to fund cancer treatment research at the University of Southern California. The Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine in Los Angeles is named after him.
Darrell Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who covers Palm Beach real estate for his weekly column, Beyond the Hedges. Follow him on Twitter: @PBDN_Hofheinz.