Wayne Huizenga has sold The Floridian Golf & Yacht Club, his private golf club in Palm City, Fla. The buyer is Houston businessman Jim Crane. The price? $25.6 million, according to Florida real estate records.
Huizenga ran The Floridian like a true benevolent dictator. The club's approximately 200 members (who included Jack Welch, Dan Marino and Rush Limbaugh) were hand-picked by the Waste Management billionaire personally, and informed of their annual membership renewal by letter each August (how did you know if your membership was revoked? you didn't get a letter). Of course, the price was right: memberships were free and there were no annual dues.
That will reportedly change under Crane. Existing members (and new ones, since Crane hopes to expand the club) will be asked to pay a $25,000 initiation fee and $12,000 in annual dues.
According to Lambiet, Huizenga paid $750,000 in 1996 for the land on which The Floridian resides. But Huizenga later told Business Week that he spent $75 million developing the club, which includes a clubhouse, three guest cottages, deepwater docks and, of course, its Gary Player-designed golf course.
-- G.R.
