For the past few years, residents of the tiny Palm Meadows Estates gated community in Boynton Beach, Fla., have gossiped about a string of home purchases that quietly took place in their neighborhood in 2023. Eight homes with different sellers, most unlisted, closed within weeks of each other for a total of almost $10 million. All were purchased by the same limited liability company with a California address.
Word quickly spread that the mystery buyer was a tech billionaire. Some speculated it was Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Others heard it was Elon Musk.
The buyer, as it turns out, was Oracle co-founder and billionaire Larry Ellison, according to an analysis of property records and people familiar with the transaction. Ellison had paid $173 million the year before for an oceanfront compound in the upscale town of Manalapan, roughly 30 minutes away.
But the Boynton Beach properties weren’t for Ellison himself. They were for his family’s staff, including tutors for some of the five children he shares with his sixth wife, Jolin Ellison, according to people familiar with the situation. An Oracle spokesperson declined to comment on Larry’s behalf.
But the Boynton Beach properties weren’t for Ellison himself. They were for his family’s staff, including tutors for some of the five children he shares with his sixth wife, Jolin Ellison, according to people familiar with the situation. An Oracle spokesperson declined to comment on Larry’s behalf.
Jolin Ellison and her husband, Larry Ellison, at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament in Indian Wells, Calif., in 2022.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
The purchases offer a rare glimpse into a phenomenon largely shielded from public view: As the ultrarich expand their personal real-estate footprints, they are also buying homes for the people who keep their households running. Some of the world’s wealthiest people have built self-contained ecosystems in which employees live close enough to be helpful, yet far enough away to maintain the family’s privacy. Meta’s Zuckerberg, for instance, has bought a number of houses in Palo Alto to build out a compound for his family.
The trend is also playing out across the luxury condo market, where developers are incorporating smaller studio and one-bedroom apartments on the lower floors of their towers in order to accommodate residents’ staff.
Palm Meadows Estates has a recreational center with a swimming pool, a fitness facility, pickleball and tennis courts. It is located next to a training center for thoroughbred horses.Joya Diglio/Luxury and Lens
“Worth it”
As the ultra wealthy—hedge-fund managers and tech titans—have poured into South Florida over the past few years, they have reshaped the education options in the area to meet the needs of their own children. Some have spent hundreds of millions to build or expand dozens of private and charter schools. Musk, WeWork Co-founder Adam Neumann, Zuckerberg and real-estate developer Jeff Greene have even founded their own schools.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Real-estate developer Jeff Greene.Saul Martinez for WSJ
WeWork Co-Founder Adam Neumann.Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Ellisons have kept details about their five children, who are younger than 18, private. They are involved parents, according to people familiar with the interactions. The Manalapan home has several buildings that include areas where the older children are home-schooled. There are an array of tutors, and the children are learning several languages, the people said.
Ellison bought a waterfront compound in the upscale community of Manalapan in 2022.Getty Images
Palm Meadows Estates, located between West Palm Beach and Boca Raton, has a gated entryway with 24-hour security and is surrounded by a lake.
“Every single home has a view of the water,” local agent Ashley McCoy of Serhant said of Palm Meadows Estates.
Kimmie Cruz, a local real-estate agent with LuxeIQ, lives in the community. One morning around March 2023, she said, she got a call from an agent at another firm asking to see all her Palm Meadows Estates listings on very short notice for a buyer who was looking to purchase about 10 homes.
While proof of funds wasn’t immediately available, the agent told Cruz that it would be “worth it” to arrange the last-minute showings, she recalled.
That day, Cruz showed several properties to a small group, including an engineer. The team was specifically interested in single-story, ranch-style homes, she said. They later wanted to see homes that weren’t on the market, so Cruz met individually with homeowners to convince them to sell.
“I said, ‘Look, this is the chance to sell it without having to have it on the market,’” Cruz said. “‘This is a chance to have somebody very viable. The money is there.’”
Days later, Cruz, who was still none the wiser about the buyer’s identity, was told he wanted to visit in-person. The person who arrived to tour the homes, flanked by bodyguards, was Ellison. That night, Cruz received the first of the signed contracts for the houses.
Palm Meadows Estates.Joya Diglio/Luxury and Lens
A common area in the gated community.Joya Diglio/Luxury and Lens
Well-maintained homes
An LLC tied to Ellison, who has a roughly $200 billion fortune, closed all eight deals between May and June 2023, according to property records. The properties are moderately sized with well-kept lawns; some have swimming pools.
Each of the sellers made a substantial profit on the sales; local agents said that is typical in the area, which saw a large influx of buyers from the Northeast during the pandemic. One couple, Paul and Yvonne Carozza, sold their three-bedroom, roughly 2,100-square-foot home to Ellison for $1.2 million; they paid $567,000 for it in 2019, records show. The Carozzas didn’t respond to a request for comment.
An increasing number of wealthy people are purchasing or renting homes for their household staff, according to Peter Mahler of Mahler Private Staffing. Including housing as part of a staff compensation package makes it easier to recruit high-quality employees, he said, particularly if a client lives in a pricey market with few affordable-housing options. Many clients prefer their staff to live off-site, so they can maintain a quiet family life and have more privacy, he said.
“If you want them to get to work quickly and have a reasonable commute, investing in lodging can be a very smart decision,” Mahler said.
Boynton Beach.Bruce/Adobe Stock
At Palm Meadows Estates, the Ellison purchases ruffled some feathers. Some objected to the idea of an individual or corporation owning so many homes within the community, according to two residents. The homeowners association later introduced rules to prevent it from happening again, Cruz said.
A neighbor who lives next door to an Ellison staff property said it is especially well-maintained. Landscaping and lawn care are provided by the community, but the neighbor said there are other vendors who have powerwashed or provided additional landscaping at the Ellison house.
The residents of at least some of the Ellison staff homes drive Teslas, residents said. Ellison served as a Tesla board member between 2018 and 2022. Records show permits were filed to install Tesla Powerwalls in each of the eight houses after Ellison purchased them, according to Palm Beach County records.
Ellison, 82, also has two adult children—Paramount chief executive David Ellison and film producer Megan Ellison—from a previous marriage. In recent months, Ellison has been serving as a major financial backer for Paramount in its massive $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
