Jeff Bezos settled in Seattle in 1994, the same year he founded Amazon. Nearly three decades later, he’s moving to the opposite coast.
In a Nov. 2 Instagram post, Bezos announced he’s relocating to his childhood hometown, Miami, after his parents—“my biggest supporters”—moved back there. It comes two and a half years after stepping down as Amazon CEO and nearly four years since his divorce with MacKenzie Bezos.
Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sanchez will also be making the cross-country move.
The announcement from the world’s third-richest man comes after he made two big real estate purchases—a $68 million mansion and an adjacent one worth $79 million—in Miami’s Indian Creek neighborhood.
His new address is on an exclusive island, nicknamed “Billionaire Bunker” for its mega-wealthy tenants. Plenty of the who’s who own property there, including activist investor Carl Icahn, supermodel Adriana Lima, American football quarterback Tom Brady, and Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, among others.
Quotable: Jeff Bezos on leaving Seattle, Washington
“I’ve lived in Seattle longer than I’ve lived anywhere else and have so many amazing memories here. As exciting as the move is, it’s an emotional decision for me. Seattle, you will always have a piece of my heart.”
—Jeff Bezos in his Nov. 2 Instagram post announcing the move
Company of interest: Blue Origin
Another reason Bezos cited for taking up residence in Florida: Blue Origin, whose “operations are increasingly shifting to Cape Canaveral.”
Aerospace company Blue Origin, which was founded by Bezos in 2000, has leased the launch site in the cape in Brevard County, Florida since 2015. Bezos has also been upping the attention he’s given to his space company: After he stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, Bezos doubled the time he devoted to Blue Origin that year. Just last month the company hired a long-term Amazon executive Dave Limp as its new CEO.
This August, photos of rocket hardware suggested Blue Origin is making progress towards a test launch to space. Orbital launches are expected to begin from the site, LC-36, in June 2024.
Florida’s Billionaire Bunker, by the digits
300 acres: Size of the Indian Creek private island
41: Residential home sites on Indian Creek—and then there’s the Indian Creek Country Club
25: Minimum number of neighbors that could form a town together under a now-defunct law, which is the law Indian Creek was formed using in 1939
13: Full-time police officers that guard the island by land and sea
$21.2 million: Median listing price on Indian Creek
3 acres: Space the two properties Bezos bought span
19,064 square feet: Area Bezos’ $79 million mansion takes up. It has seven bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, a pool, a theater, a library, a wine cellar, a sauna, housekeeping quarters, and six garage spaces.
9,259 square feet: Area for Bezos’ cheaper mansion, which has a more moderate three bedrooms and three bathrooms.