Billionaire Ken Griffin’s plan to uproot a 113-year-old Coconut Grove mansion and plant it on the grounds of Vizcaya just cleared a major hurdle. The Miami-Dade County Commission voted to let Mayor Daniella Levine Cava or her designee begin negotiating with Griffin over relocating Villa Serena, the Mediterranean-style home built for William Jennings Bryan, to Vizcaya Village.
There is no announced timeline for how long those negotiations will take, according to the Miami Herald, which first reported the vote. Villa Serena currently sits on Griffin’s four-acre bayfront estate, which he bought from Adrienne Arsht in 2022 for nearly $107 million, a purchase that was, at the time, the most expensive home sale ever recorded in Miami-Dade County. Arsht had meticulously restored Villa Serena and used it as a guest house while living in a larger mansion she built at 3031 and 3115 Brickell Ave.
Griffin began planning to move the house shortly after he acquired the property, and last year announced plans to relocate it roughly half a mile to Vizcaya’s grounds. The hedge-fund magnate, whose net worth is estimated at $56.9 billion, also pledged $20 million to Vizcaya Museum & Gardens to help revitalize its historic farm village, where Vizcaya hopes Villa Serena would eventually be open to the public…