Luxury Home Builder Reports Influx of California Billionaires Relocating to South Florida

Manny Angelo Vargas, a builder of custom homes for billionaires and celebrities, told The Post he is seeing an enormous influx of inquiries, purchases and relocations from California. Vargas has built projects for Lil Wayne and Rick Ross and is actively working on projects with half a dozen billionaire families.

There are about a dozen total billionaires that are eyeing opportunities for land acquisitions or home remodels in South Florida, he added.

5 million signatures. Vargas said the billionaire tax was the breaking point of California being anti-business and anti-billionaire. As much as $1 trillion in total wealth has left California starting late last year according to one estimate.

South Florida offers the right mix of weather, privacy, culture and low taxes according to Vargas. Jeff Bezos owns a mega-compound in the Indian Creek gated community in Miami. Mark Zuckerberg purchased a mansion in Indian Creek for $170 million.

California expats are obsessed with biophilic designs that combine indoor and outdoor elements. Most-requested features from California expats include massive walls of plants, koi ponds, garden terraces and underwater art installations. Wellness-obsessed California billionaires request home saunas, cold plunges and carefully controlled humidity.

Vargas said clients want nature and organic materials, wellness and health features, integrating tele-health monitors and systems into gyms. Clients want to invite friends for integrated saunas, cold plunges, and on-site padel courts. Vargas has built custom homes worth as much as $150 million.

Safety is an enormous concern for billionaire clients, Vargas said. A molotov cocktail was hurled at billionaire OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s mansion in San Francisco last month. One high-end client asked for an oxygen-controlled safe room where his family could isolate for up to three days.

Popular features include futuristic security systems that use special lighting to detect movement, custom lighting systems that change automatically according to the time of day, and invisible speakers. Florida has a proposal of eliminating property taxes which is going to a vote in November.

Vargas expects the shift to accelerate as more billionaires seek an alternative to what he described as California's hostile sentiment.

” “Definitely it’s just the beginning — its not just whether this billionaire tax gets approved, its the sentiment of what the state wants,” he said.