Vita at Grove Isle

About the Project

Vita at Grove Isle occupies a category of its own — not because of its price point or its amenities, but because of where it sits. Grove Isle is a 20-acre private island in Biscayne Bay, accessible by a single bridge and bounded on three sides by open water. The island's origins trace back to 1924, when the Army Corps of Engineers dredged it from the bay floor. Originally called Fair Isle, it was subdivided in 1925 and sold to land boom speculators for over .5 million in a matter of hours — only for the market to collapse and leave the site as little more than a sand bar covered in Australian pines for the next half century. Large-scale development didn't arrive until the late 1970s, when investor Martin Margulies completed a 00 million build-out in 1982: three 18-story residential towers with Asian-inflected interiors, a hotel and yacht club, a deep-water marina, a professional tennis club, and a world-class 55-piece sculpture garden installed across the island's grounds. That project — four buildings total, roughly 510 residences — defined the island for four decades. No new construction followed. Vita, completed in December 2025, is the first new residential building on Grove Isle in over forty years, built on the site of the former hotel and club that was demolished in 2020 to clear the way for it. The project required years of legal battles with neighboring residents and condo owners before a single foundation was poured. What stands today is the result of Ugo Colombo's CMC Group finally securing a site that, for most of Miami's recent boom years, was simply not available.

Colombo is the developer most responsible for establishing Miami as a serious luxury residential market. Born in Milan in 1961, he came to the United States in 1983 and earned his degree from the University of Miami, initially acquiring and reselling foreclosed properties before founding CMC Group and turning it toward high-rise development on Brickell Avenue. Bristol Tower, completed in 1993, is widely credited with igniting the city's luxury residential boom — it was one of the first towers added to the Miami skyline in fifteen years. Santa Maria followed, a 54-story building whose scale and finish level set a new benchmark for Brickell and helped establish the neighborhood as a genuine global address. Grovenor House brought CMC to Coconut Grove in 2006; Epic Residences and Hotel took the firm downtown with a 55-story mixed-use tower at the mouth of the Miami River. Brickell Flatiron, a joint venture with developer Vladislav Doronin, added another landmark to the Brickell corridor. Across three decades, the pattern is consistent: Colombo builds slowly, builds to a higher standard of finish than the market around him, and selects sites that other developers cannot access or have not yet recognized. Vita is the culmination of that approach — a site that required a decade to unlock, on an island with no parallel in Miami.

The building is configured as three interconnected curved structures — Mare, Luce, and Sole — rising seven stories along the island's eastern Biscayne Bay shoreline. The form follows the natural contour of the waterfront so that every residence faces open water. All sixty-five homes enter via private elevator foyers; standard residences range from approximately 2,500 to just over 5,000 square feet across three- and four-bedroom layouts, with 65 linear feet of bay frontage and 13-foot-deep terraces. The twelve two-story penthouses reach 6,600 square feet of interior space, each with a private rooftop terrace of up to 6,100 square feet — outdoor pools, summer kitchens, and unobstructed 360-degree views across the bay and city. Interiors were designed by Carlo and Paolo Colombo of A++ Architecture, with Boffi cabinetry, Dornbracht fixtures, and book-matched marble throughout. The project financed through a 39 million construction loan from Bank OZK, and by delivery was 85 percent presold — approximately 55 of 65 homes contracted before the building opened. Pricing runs from .5 million for a standard residence to 2 million for a top penthouse. The buyer profile has skewed heavily domestic, with many purchasers downsizing from nearby Coconut Grove and Coral Gables estates who wanted to stay in the neighborhood without giving up the scale of their homes.

The amenity program extends well beyond the building itself. CMC Group rebuilt the Grove Isle Racquet and Yacht Club as part of the project, and Vita residents receive full membership. The club operates an 85-slip deep-water marina with dockmaster service — one of the largest on Biscayne Bay — along with a water sports pavilion and a 40-foot Fjord houseboat available for resident charter. Eight Har-Tru clay tennis courts run a full professional program; pickleball and padel facilities were added as part of the rebuild. On-site, the three-level clubhouse houses a bayfront pool with personal attendants, a spa with separate mens and womens quarters, a fitness center, yoga studio, and an HD golf simulator. La Sponda, an Italian restaurant operated by Gioia Hospitality Group with sweeping bay views, anchors the club's ground floor and is set to open to the public in 2026.

The setting — a private island, a single bridge in and out, open bay on three sides — is not a lifestyle amenity that can be replicated elsewhere in Miami. The island's residential community has always been among the most insular in the city, a function of geography as much as wealth. Its mature tree canopy, its sculpture-lined paths, its absence of through traffic: these are conditions that took decades to grow and cannot be recreated from scratch. Vita's residents are not buying access to a private island that was designed to feel exclusive. They are buying into an island that has been genuinely private since the Corps of Engineers pulled it up from the bay floor a century ago.

Amenities

Location

4 Grove Isle Dr, Miami, FL 33133