Billionaire Ken Griffin’s Colossal Palm Beach Estate Riles Up Neighbors

Like a sliver of Versailles transplanted in Palm Beach, billionaire Ken Griffin’s estate extends along 1,400 feet of the Florida coast. For the past decade, the hedge fund titan has gobbled up parcel after parcel of land, ultimately forming the largest residential property on the island, according to the local press. And this month, news broke that the billionaire had finally won approval for a new mansion on the estate, a 44,000-square-foot colossus for his mother.

“It’s insane what he amassed,” local mega-developer Todd Michael Glaser told The Daily Beast.

Yet not everyone is pleased with the new emperor’s activity, which has thrust the ultra-rich enclave into a tangle of finger-pointing. This spring, an LLC tied to Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie—who owns a comparatively puny 1.8-acre parcel—filed a lawsuit against the town and entities affiliated with Griffin, alleging that development plans will impede his access to the beach.

Other neighbors have grumbled as well, including author Margaret Bradham Thornton and her husband, former Goldman Sachs President John Thornton. At a town meeting last month, their lawyer objected to approval of the new mansion, arguing that its “inordinate size” would “dwarf” other residences, as the Palm Beach Daily News previously noted.

Attorneys for Lurie and the Thorntons declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for Griffin.

Griffin made major waves in the financial world in June after announcing that he would move the headquarters of his firm, Citadel, from Chicago to Miami. He had repeatedly griped about crime in Chicago, though he will also likely benefit from Florida’s lack of income taxes. The 53-year-old tycoon, who grew up in South Florida, is worth an estimated $25 billion.

Though Citadel scooped up a lot in Miami for a record $363 million in April, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, it is Griffin’s personal dealmaking that has recently generated more attention. And even before the recent fracas, the billionaire enjoyed a mixed reputation.

Susan Gary, a long-time resident who is active in local government issues, told The Daily Beast that Griffin rankled some locals after creating a quarantine bubble for dozens of his staffers at the Palm Beach Four Seasons at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, turning it into a “makeshift trading floor” even as some residents wanted businesses to shut down for safety.

“There was a lot of resentment over the fact that he did that,” she said. Gary added that she has no problem with Griffin accumulating so much land, though she noted that the “construction of homes that are grossly larger than the neighbors’ is a problem in many parts of town.” That issue is generally more relevant on smaller lots, however, she said.

Some of Griffin’s neighbors aren’t worried about the buying binge. The real estate billionaire Jeff Greene, who lives just a few houses from Griffin, told The Daily Beast that the Citadel CEO is just exercising his free market rights: “If he wants to buy a bunch of property, that’s his prerogative.”

Greene thinks that Griffin’s massive estate is actually a win for the neighborhood because it will ensure the area remains quiet. To those protesting the development, he said, “I can’t imagine they’d rather have 10 cars pulling out every morning than one.”

Squabbling seems to be part of life in Palm Beach. The Thorntons, who have been among the most visible opponents to the plan, were ironically the subject of previous complaints themselves. In 2017, an LLC affiliated with their next-door neighbors, Bradley and Lamia Jacobs, filed a suit alleging that the couple had engaged in a “campaign of harassment and bullying,” including by calling the police on the Jacobses’ landscapers and letting their dogs “run wild.” Three years prior, the Thorntons had sued the Jacobses over a property rights dispute. (There have been other petty-sounding lawsuits as well; the cases have turned into a legal morass, with some of the matters still pending.)

Lurie’s complaint centered on a separate topic. His lawsuit contends that the town failed to obtain consent from all affected property owners before it decided to reroute beach access for residents who live on the lagoon side of the street.

Instead, his filing claimed, the town eliminated Lurie’s old method of accessing the beach via a private road in the middle of Griffin’s estate, forcing him to travel a greater distance on foot or—gasp!—scout for parking on South Ocean Boulevard “and then walk (with beach equipment in hand) along the heavily-trafficked” street. The litigation is ongoing.

Glaser waved off the legal fireworks, calling them a normal feature of doing business in Palm Beach. “These guys lawyer up right away,” he said. “They don’t sit and call you.”

He praised Griffin’s dealmaking skills, suggesting that the billionaire’s reported $450 million string of land acquisitions should be seen as “a hard-asset” investment more than a simple spending spree. “He’s a smart fucking guy, and he knew land was undervalued,” Glaser said, arguing that the properties could collectively be worth more than $2 billion. (Greene, for his part, called that estimate “ridiculous,” saying that the land is likely worth close to what Griffin paid for it.)

Griffin's financial ascent traces to his college days. According to Forbes, while he was a student at Harvard in the 1980s, his family and friends entrusted him with $265,000, which he used to successfully trade options and bonds. His career as a trader scaled up from there. As of this spring, Citadel had more than $50 billion in assets under management.

The billionaire has indulged extensively with his earnings. The mansion for his mother, located less than a thousand yards from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, will feature shuffleboard courts, an expansive guest house, a gym, a theater, and a “salt room.”

And if Griffin ever chooses to offload his Florida holdings, he’ll have several back-up options to hole up in. In the last five years, he has splashed out on a $122 million mansion in London, a $59 million multi-floor condo purchase in Chicago, and a $238 million penthouse in New York, which in 2019 clocked in as the most expensive home sale in American history.

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