Larry Ellison is known for his work as cofounder and chief technology officer of Oracle. In South Florida, he is using his developer skills by investing millions of dollars in real estate and helping to turn a private island town 20 minutes from Mar-a-Lago into a haven for the very wealthy.
Bloomberg stated that the fifth richest person in the world began buying homes in the 400-person town of Manalapan, Florida, in 2022. Since then, he has put $450 million into two historic homes. Ellison broke a Florida record when he paid $173 million for a 16-acre estate with land on both the beach and a lake. Bloomberg says that in August 2024, he paid $277 million for the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, which has more than 300 rooms and is the town’s biggest building.
The hotel is built on the site of the old La Coquille Club. In the 1950s, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and members of the Ford and Vanderbilt families were said to have been guests there. The first club was torn down in the 1980s, but the name stands and is now part of the Eau Palm Beach hotel. The Town of Manalapan’s website says that people who live in Manalapan can join the beach club without having to pay any fees or yearly dues.
For years, Florida homes have become more and more popular with the very wealthy. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has bought three homes on the island of Indian Creek in Florida, which is close to Miami. The founder and CEO of the investment company Citadel, Ken Griffin, has also spent about $450 million over the years to buy a 25-acre estate in Palm Beach.
It is said that several beachfront houses in Manalapan have sold for tens of millions of dollars along the same road as Ellison’s property. Still, John Deese, the mayor of Manalapan, told Fortune that the recent expensive purchases and Ellison’s investments in the town are great.
“Manalapan has been one of the best places in the US to buy a house for a long time.” Recent sales have made the south Florida real estate market even stronger as a whole. Deese said in an email, “We feel very lucky that Mr. Ellison and others chose Manalapan as the place to invest in residential and commercial property.”
Ellison’s buying of the Eau Palm Beach hotel has made it a popular place for wealthy people to look for homes. Stewart Satter, a local developer who just put a $285 million house on the market next to Ellison’s land in Manalapan, said that Ellison’s plans for the hotel could become the center of attention in the area.
Satter told Bloomberg, “The hotel has the potential to be one of the best properties in town.” “Ellison also has a reputation for running some beautiful resorts.”
Ellison bought most of the Hawaiian island of Lanai in 2012 for about $300 million. His company, Pulama Lanai, has rebuilt the island’s two Four Seasons resort hotels, which have been praised for their new, ultra-luxurious touches. SFGate says that the Four Seasons Resort Lanai added a $21,000-a-night “Alii (royalty) suite,” grotto-style pools, and iPad Airs in every room so that guests could order room service and have the house cleaned, among other things.
Ellison has also promised to make changes at the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, and according to Bloomberg, he has already set up a temporary Nobu restaurant there. It looks like Ellison really likes Nobu. They took Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, there last year to beg him for more GPUs. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, also went with them. Ellison said he paid for it.
One reason people like living in or near Manalapan is that it’s close to Mar-a-Lago, which is President Trump’s “Winter White House” and where he often spends the weekends, according to Palm Beach County Commissioner Maria Sachs.
“Everywhere in that area is hot right now because of Trump,” Sachs told Bloomberg. That’s so close to Mar-a-Lago that you can become a member. Everyone knows that he’s very public at that club.