JIMMY BUFFETT LIVED IN PARADISE, FROM A CUSTOM HAMPTONS HOME TO A ST. BARTS VILLA

When “Margaritaville” singer Jimmy Buffett died a year ago, he was surrounded by friends and family at his roughly 5,000-square-foot, waterfront home in New York’s Sag Harbor area. His other houses across the country, and even his former residences, quickly became the sites of tributes covered in flower leis and tequila bottles.

About 1,000 miles south of Long Island, at his 2,300-square-foot home in the “Latitude Margaritaville” residential community in Daytona Beach, Fla., neighbors created a makeshift memorial of margarita bottles, straw hats, beach balls, flip flops and leis.

Another 1,400 miles southeast, near a plot of land Buffett owned on St. Barts island as a base for surfing, local surfers formed a circle in the Caribbean Sea and held a small, floating memorial service, said Douglas Foregger, the owner and co-owner of two St. Barts real-estate brokerages.

Wherever he owned properties, the changes in latitude didn’t seem to change the outpouring of support from his fans, affectionately called Parrotheads, following his death at age 76 on Sept. 1, 2023. Even in cities where he no longer owned or rented property—like Key West, Fla; Aspen, Co.; New York; New Orleans; Nashville, Tenn.; and his hometown Mobile, Ala.—fans gathered and posted photos online to remember the “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” singer.

During his half-century performing as a free-spirited coastal cowboy, Buffett also became known for his business acumen. He made an estimated $570 million from touring and recording and was the founder of the Margaritaville brand, which was named for his 1977 song and includes restaurants, bars, a casino, footwear, three Latitude Margaritaville active-adult residential communities, food, liquor, books and a Broadway show, according to an obituary in The Wall Street Journal.

At the time of his death, after a four-year battle with a type of skin cancer called Merkel-cell carcinoma, the “Cheeseburger in Paradise” singer had an estimated net worth of $1 billion, according to Forbes.

Buffett’s holdings included a music catalog worth $50 million and about $140 million in planes, homes and shares in Berkshire Hathaway. So far, the estate doesn’t appear to have sold any of his iconic homes, many of which Buffett built himself or spotted as diamonds in the rough, paying a fraction of what they are valued at today.

Buffett’s wife, Jane Slagsvol, who is also the executor of his estate, didn’t respond to requests for comment about plans for the portfolio of homes. His business partner, John L. Cohlan, the chief executive of Margaritaville Holdings, also didn’t respond to a request for comment. Richard Mozenter, a trustee of Buffett’s estate, declined to comment.

Over the years, he spent more than $13 million buying and building the collection of houses that he still owned when he died. Here’s a look at Buffett’s real-estate portfolio.

Escape from Key West to Palm Beach

Buffett helped popularize Key West, where he lived in the ’70s and ’80s, with songs like “I Have Found Me a Home.” But as the area became more popular with tourists, he found himself more drawn to Palm Beach where “no one bothers me,” he told the Palm Beach Post in 2015.

So in the ’90s, Buffett and Slagsvol moved to Palm Beach, about 200 miles north of Key West, and raised their three children. During her sometimes-nomadic upbringing with Buffett, his eldest daughter, Savannah Buffett, described her dad not as the internationally renowned singer-songwriter but as “the pancake guy” who made her breakfast, according to the 2017 biography “Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way.”

In 2002, Buffett spent $802,000 on a circa-1900, three-bedroom bungalow in Palm Beach about 500 feet from the Atlantic Ocean and 2,000 feet from the Intracoastal Waterway, according to property records. The house is on Root Trail, one of the oldest roads in the area in a neighborhood known for its artists and surfers, according to its landmark designation report.

The house, which was listed for sale in July asking $7.25 million, has pine floors, a patio, two outdoor showers and a stand-alone home recording studio, according to the listing with Blake Hanley of Brown Harris Stevens of Palm Beach and Denise Hanley of Denise A. Hanley, Inc. brokerage.

Buffett bought and sold pricier Palm Beach houses over the years for millions more than he paid for them, but he always kept this place.

In 2013, Buffett expanded the Root Trail house into a compound, paying $2.25 million for a pair of newly renovated homes across the street, said John Cerreta, the builder who handled the renovation.

When he initially bought them, he used one house as a garage and studio, parking his ‘63 Ford Falcon convertible on the first floor, putting a kitchen and bathroom on the second floor, and converting the third floor into a recording studio, said Cerreta. The other three-bedroom house became Buffett’s Root Trail guesthouse, said Cerreta.

His estate also listed these houses for sale in July, asking $6.125 million and $6.65 million, respectively. The $6.125 million house is currently set up with a workshop, pool table area, wine fridge and wet bar, while the $6.65 million house has a kitchen with a wine fridge, and a combined living and dining room, the listings show.

A custom-built summer home in Southampton

Buffett began building his Southampton house in 1993, around the time he moved to Palm Beach. He purchased a roughly 5-acre waterfront property in the village of North Haven, a peninsula above Sag Harbor between the north and south forks of Long Island, for around $1 million and built a summer home there several years later, records show.

The roughly 5,000-square-foot house with two levels of wraparound porches has a home studio where he often recorded videos of himself singing to post on social media in recent years.

The grounds also have a pool, guesthouses and a dock for his seaplane, photos show. The cost to develop the estate couldn’t be determined, but the property was assessed at a worth of around $20 million in 2024, according to the Town of Southampton. Buffett had a home in Sag Harbor before custom-building this house, property records show.

A view of the bay in St. Barts

Buffett also built a colonial-style villa on the west side of the Caribbean island of St. Barts, in the island’s capital city Gustavia, said Foregger. The house, which he said was completed around 2019, overlooks a bay. Across the bay is Le Select bar, which was known as a frequent spot for Buffett to drink with friends or perform. The large estate with multiple structures and a pool sits on a hill above where Buffett parked his yacht and sailboat, said Foregger, adding that the estate was a quiet and private place. It couldn’t be determined whether the Buffett estate still owns this house.

Buffett also owned a piece of land on the beach on the eastern side of the island with a picnic area that served as a surfing base, said Foregger.

Buffett first visited St. Barts in the late ’70s. There, he became known for drinking, performing, surfing and even helping to briefly open a club while mingling with friends, according to his biography. In 2014, the singer saved comedian Colin Jost from a surfing accident there, Jost recalled in his 2020 memoir “A Very Punchable Face.”

Building a community in Daytona Beach

His largest building projects came in the form of his Latitude Margaritaville residential communities for people aged “55 and better.” His company opened the first Latitude Margaritaville location in 2018 in Daytona Beach, about 200 miles north of Palm Beach. When it opened, he purchased his own Margaritaville house, a modest two-bedroom, 2,300-square-foot home with blue shutters. It cost about $430,000 in 2018, property records show.

The community, which has a concert venue, pickleball courts and a Margaritaville-themed restaurant, is still in its final phase of development, according to a Margaritaville spokeswoman. Homes cost between $300,000 and $1.7 million, according to their website. There are now two other active-adult retirement communities under the Latitude Margaritaville banner, in Hilton Head, S.C., and on the Florida panhandle.

West Palm

In 2012, about 3 miles southwest of his Palm Beach houses, Buffett purchased a three-bedroom, 2,500-square-foot West Palm Beach home for $560,000, according to property records.

The house, located several hundred yards from the Intracoastal Waterway in the city’s historic El Cid neighborhood, was built around 1930, property records show. It has an in-ground pool and an indoor-outdoor dining area, photos show. Some of Buffett’s staff have lived there at times, according to voter registration records.

Midcentury in Beverly Hills

In 2014, a trust tied to Buffett purchased this three-bedroom, 4,300-square-foot ranch home in Beverly Hills’ Trousdale Estates neighborhood for $8.25 million.

Interior designer Elizabeth Law Slagsvol, a relative of Buffett’s, lived there in 2017, according to voting registration records, around the time she was dating actor Will Arnett. She renovated the circa-1963 house, according to her website, before it was listed for rent in 2019, according to Zillow.

The mid-century-style home’s glass walls and cantilevered roof cradle a pool with a water feature, photos of Slagsvol’s renovation show. There are several fireplaces, a wet bar and an indoor-outdoor dining and seating area, photos show.

Write to Sarah Paynter at [email protected]

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