Inside the island fortress of America's mega-billionaires [View all]
As my boat cruises toward the private island city of Indian Creek Village — better known as the Billionaire Bunker — I'm hoping my trip doesn't end in an arrest.
It's a hot morning on South Florida's Biscayne Bay, and I've convinced two local tour boat captains to pilot me around the perimeter of what is quite possibly the wealthiest and most heavily defended town in America. I'm not entirely clear on the rules about boating near the island, which lies just across the bay from Miami, and neither are my captains — they're both in their first weeks on the job. What I do know is that Indian Creek employs a new all-seeing security system and a small navy of police officers who frequently stop and ticket boats that venture too close to the island's manicured shore.
As we near the northwestern side of the island, I spot the bright red steel beams of "La Petite Clef," the Mark di Suvero sculpture that towers 20 feet over the front lawn of the car magnate Norman Braman's mansion. We glide past a modern palace hidden behind a dense cluster of palm trees, purchased for $50 million in 2019 by a mysterious LLC linked to the emir of Qatar. On the southwestern shore, we come upon the island's most sought-after mansions. This is where the elite of the elite live: Tom Brady, Carl Icahn, and the neighborhood's most recent arrival, Jeff Bezos. The wealth here is staggering — 25,000-square-foot mansions with ivy-strewn stucco walls, fronted by sprawling lawns and sleek yachts. Today, almost all the mansions appear to be empty.
As we get closer to the shore, I start to notice the cameras.
Snip
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/inside-the-island-fortress-of-americas-mega-billionaires/ar-AA1qZi9f?ocid=BingNewsSerp
= new reply since forum marked as read