For a man who is notoriously publicity-shy, Ken Griffin, the founder and chief executive of Citadel, a market-making securities firm and hugely successful hedge fund with $72 billion under management, sure seems to court renown.
Years ago, a wise woman once said that though they were Hollywood royalty, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward didn’t attract much attention because they lived a quiet life in suburban Westport, Connecticut, with none of the flash and fire that brings tabloid-style attention. For decades, Griffin, 57, though a titan of finance, operated in a similar manner, hiding in plain sight in Chicago. But during COVID, that changed when he moved some of Citadel’s operations south to Florida, where he was born in Daytona Beach and raised, a math-savvy computer nerd, in Boca Raton. He bought out the Palm Beach Four Seasons Hotel and isolated a team on a makeshift financial trading floor there, guarded by private security. Nonetheless, people noticed.
Today, the spotlight stays on Griffin, who stands on his wallet at number 37 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a personal fortune estimated at $48.3 billion. And none of the gossip-ready behavior that preceded and followed Citadel’s flight south (a contentious 2014 divorce, the 2018 kickoff of a noisy feud with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, his winning 2021 $43.2 million auction bid for a rare first edition copy of the United States Constitution, and his $44.6 million purchase in 2024 of a Stegosaurus fossil, for instance) has been as effective at attracting the limelight as his blatant addiction to buying luxury residential real estate.
A quick inventory of what the Wall Street Journal has called Griffin’s “unparalleled portfolio of trophy properties” past and present includes a Chicago duplex penthouse (later sold, ironically, to Pritzker); 27 ocean-to-Intracoastal acres in Palm Beach; a similarly super sized parcel on Miami’s Star Island; two penthouses in Miami’s Faena condo; a four-acre waterfront estate in Coconut Grove; apartments on steroids in three of New York’s wealthiest apartment homes (including the 740 Park duplex previously owned by Angier Biddle Duke and David Koch, and what had been Lily Safra’s spread at 820 Fifth); a $122 million Georgian-era mansion designed by architect John Nash near Buckingham Palace in London, and, for vacations, two parcels in Hualalai, Hawaii; two properties on the Tiehack side of Aspen, Colorado’s Buttermilk Mountain; an estate previously owned by Henry Francis duPont, “Baby Jane” Holzer, and Calvin Klein on posh Meadow Lane in Southampton, and a home formerly owned by Gunter Sachs, a German automotive heir, playboy, and Brigitte Bardot ex, in Domaine de la Capilla, a gated enclave near Saint-Tropez’ famous Pampelonne Beach.
What motivates Griffin? A spokesman replies that he and his mother just want to be good Palm Beach neighbors. “They look forward to being part of the community for decades to come,” says Zia Ahmed. But the fact remains that, through sheer force of will, Griffin reset the market value of trophy properties. Several of his acquisitions set real estate price records, most notably Griffin’s $238 million purchase in 2019 of a quadruplex penthouse atop the late Robert A.M. Stern’s then-under-construction limestone fortress at 220 Central Park South—the most expensive home sold to date in the United States, with protected, irreplaceable views of Central Park. “This seems more about ego and narcissism,” a “real-estate insider” told the New York Post. “Griffin is buying this property at these prices because he can, and he wants everyone to know it.”
Some wealthy folks indulge in art and jewelry, but those habits are typically conducted in the strictest secrecy, and such booty remains hidden behind gilded doors. So, too, garages full of rare cars. Superyachts carry GPS trackers and Automatic Identification System devices, but they can be turned off. And while a stinkpot isn’t easy to hide, it’s harder to shoot at a moving target than a stationary one. Houses, locked in place and subject to all sorts of bureaucratic surveillance, are a different story.
So, Griffin, with all of his, is the ultimate example of the new top-class top dogs: Masters of the Mansion Universe. He’s hardly alone. In and around Palm Beach, fashion designers and tech moguls now compete with financiers for fine homes. Such notables as Stephen Schwarzman, Larry Ellison, Tom Ford, William Lauder, and Charles S. Cohen are standout residence collectors. All are dedicated devotees of what should now be termed polydomary. Rather than owning one designated primary residence at a time—the property analogue to sexual serial monogamy—and a second or, at most, third one in the country, at the beach or, perhaps, abroad, Mansion Masters enjoy multiple simultaneous relationships, maintaining mistresses in many ports, most often the sort of realty that boasts more bedrooms than residents.
“They have portfolios as large as a dozen homes,” says one of New York’s top-producing realtors, who asked for anonymity as several Mansion Masters are clients, regularly shopping and buying in the $40 million–and-up range the broker calls “the ubermarket.” It is populated by the highest net worth individuals, folks with “gluttonous appetites” for homes, the broker says, and no plans to sell. Their purchases are long term holds, part of well-thought-out succession plans, often encouraged or designed by financial advisors and family offices. Though the trend began before the pandemic, it has exploded post-COVID, as the uber-wealthy saw market instability rising and determined that 20 percent of their investment cash should be deployed in the safest investment there is. “They’re tripling down on real estate,” the broker says.
Though he’s worked all his life in that field, Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, an appraisal and property consulting firm, says he was so surprised by the $88 million 2012 sale of banker Sanford Weill’s triplex at 15 Central Park West to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, that he took on a new hobby: tracking real estate purchases exceeding $50 million. The Rybolovlev transaction triggered explosive growth in the highest end of the real estate market. Where once, a $50 million-plus sale happened every three months, Miller says, “now, there’s one every third day.”
Some think the discrepancies between prices paid and so-called comparables in top-tier markets are insane. Miller juggles several theories about why that has happened. “It’s really a land grab,” he says. Although most homes depreciate, the best land appreciates along with the wealth of the wealthiest. Miller thinks fear of missing out also plays a big part, driven by the same competitive instincts behind their accumulation of wealth. “It’s about being Number One.” But also, about accumulating still more wealth. “The underlying assumption is that ten to 20 years from now, it will be worth much more, so who cares if it’s perceived as over-paying. If you’re really wealthy, it’s still cheap,” Miller speculates. Land may appreciate slowly at times, “but it doesn’t devalue in a nano-second like crypto. And every time there’s an earth-changing event like COVID, prices reset higher.”
Recently, Nikki Field, the New York–based Sotheby’s International Realty’s super-broker, has given several talks on what she calls the mega-market, noting that post-COVID, it has expanded well beyond Manhattan, no longer America’s sole “symbol of global business power.” Trophy homes in high-profile places are platforms for “social capital [and] visibility,” she says, “trophy assets” that “cannot be replicated. When something irreplaceable comes to market, the world’s wealthiest compete instantly.” They consider real estate a long term appreciation vehicle, a safe haven for capital, a legacy asset for future generations and a lifestyle anchor.
Their residential portfolios are no longer just “discretionary luxuries,” but “core pillars of billionaire strategy.” It’s not about square footage, Field continues. “They’re acquiring cultural power, global connectivity, privacy, and legacy.”
What and where they buy matters most of all. “Ultra-wealth always chases scarcity,” Field concludes, whether it’s beach-front land (empty or occupied by a tear-down, no matter), a post-modern Robert A.M. Stern condominium, or a home with significant provenance.
Owning the real estate equivalent of blue-chip equities is a hedge against inflation, since trophy properties inevitably outperform other assets and appreciate even in volatile markets.
One way to look at polydomary is as an evolution of property promiscuity, the open relationships that once saw the wealthy adopt the friend-with-benefits habit of house-guesting or hopping around among luxury hotel suites.
Once, when asked why anyone would spend $100 million on a Palm Beach property when they already owned multiple homes, Gary Pohrer, Executive Director of Luxury Sales at Serhant, shot back, “How much money do you have? How many homes can you pay for with cash? When you can buy 100 houses and not affect your life, why would you not do that? Waking up in the most amazing homes all around the world is better than having a little more money in your portfolio.” Pohrer lives in Palm Beach, he continues, “and whenever I go on vacation, I downgrade. Why would you downgrade your experience if everywhere you go, you can have the feeling, Holy shit! I can’t believe I’m here.” It’s really all about possession. Mine is key and mine’s bigger is bigger, the next step up the polydomary status ladder. And if gaining (even allegedly unwanted) renown for one’s real estate is the chief criteria, Ken Griffin’s portfolio clearly makes him king of the property hill, America’s polydomarist-in-chief.
This is an excerpt from PALMER Vol. 10. To read the full story, click here to purchase the issue.
