With the split of Elle Macpherson and her billionaire husband, Jeff Soffer, now being reported by multiple outlets as really, really happening this time (the couple originally started dating in 2009, split in March 2012, got back together in November that year and married the following year), attention is turning to their huge asset pile, and how it might be divvied up.
And what a lot of money there will be to fight about. Soffer, a real-estate developer who is credited with, among other achievements, turning the Fontainebleau Miami Beach into one of the world’s hippest hotels, is estimated to have a fortune of more than $1 billion.
The couple—who had a long-running on-again, off-again romance before they ran away to Fiji and got married in 2013, after Soffer was involved in a horrific helicopter crash—famously own one of Miami’s most opulent homes.
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Their palm-tree-lined palace on the exclusive island fortress of Indian Creek has already survived one divorce—it was actually built by Soffer, the son of Donald Soffer, a Florida real-estate developer said to be worth $4.2 billion, when he was married to his previous wife, Kimberly.
The home occupies nearly 25,600 square feet and features, as fans of Macpherson's Instagram account know all too well, marble footpaths, a giant swimming pool, waterfront views, a dock for water-borne arrivals, and private access to the island’s ultra-exclusive golf course.
Indian Creek is home to some of America’s—and the world’s—greatest fortunes.
According to Forbes magazine, a Russian buyer recently spent $47 million for a plot on the island in what was Miami-Dade County’s most expensive sale ever; it snatched that dubious honor from another Indian Creek sale in April.
The Soffer-Macpherson home is one of only 40 waterfront parcels on the island, which is patrolled by a private police force that plies their beat on boat, jeep, and jet skis 24 hours a day.
Residents include Julio Iglesias, the model Adriana Lima and her husband, pro basketball player Marko Jaric, and Carl Icahn, the leveraged-buyout billionaire.
Beyoncé and Jay Z sold up in 2010 for a mere $9.3m, but properties now regularly change hands for four times that amount.
Following Macpherson’s reported split from Soffer, an insider told Page Six: “She has left their house at Indian Creek in Miami with her kids, and is looking for her own house in Miami.”
The Australian supermodel—nicknamed “The Body”—has two teenage sons, Flynn and Aurelius Cy, from her relationship with hedge funder Arpad Busson.
She was also previously married to fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon in 1986.
Macpherson was born in Sydney, and rose to fame in the 1980s appearing on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover a record five times.
