Michael DeGroote built a trucking empire. John Donahue co-founded Federated Investors, now Federated Hermes. In the 1980s each pieced together a big stretch of Gordon Drive, the beach road known as Naples' Billionaires' Row. The Donahues built their compound for 13 children and 84 grandchildren. DeGroote died in 2022. So did Rhodora Donahue, John's widow. Then the heirs got ready to sell.
The DeGroote heirs went first, the Journal's E.B. Solomont reports. They listed in March 2023 at $295 million. A billionaire family made three offers over nine months. Still, broker Michael McCumber calls 2023 a terrible year to sell, squeezed between Hurricane Ian and the 2024 election. In April 2025 a buyer finally paid $225 million. That's $70 million under the ask, about 24% off. Fourteen months later the same buyer paid $86 million for the Stayer place next door. A Wisconsin business family had bought it in 2012 for $42 million. Together the two deals came to $311 million for nearly 19 acres. The buyer hides behind a land trust and nondisclosure agreements, contracts that keep people quiet. Even McCumber says he doesn't know who it is. “They've never set foot on the property that I know of,” he says. By early October the old DeGroote house was coming down behind a chain-link fence.
The family still waiting
The Donahue heirs put their 8.54 acres on the market at the same $295 million. The DeGroote sale, they felt, set the bar higher. They also wondered whether that buyer could have been theirs. Mark Murtha runs the family office, the firm that manages the family's money. He says there are only so many billionaires to go around. The family switched brokers and cut the ask to $271 million. It now offers the land in smaller pieces too. Last year's tax bill on the property was more than $1 million. Murtha says the family is patient.
Elsewhere on the coast, the deals keep coming. A new 9,500-square-foot house beside the compound sold for $69.36 million. Its seller bought the lot for $29.99 million in 2022 and tore down the old home. In Palm Beach, an oceanfront estate is in contract at about $160 million. The two developers buying it plan to raze the house and may build two homes on two tax lots. The seller's husband died in 2024 at 99, and she wanted to downsize, their daughter said.
Our read
This is an Estate story with a Mansion address. The DeGroote heirs waited two years and took 24% less than they asked. The Donahue heirs have been on the market since at least early 2024. They've cut $24 million off the price, and last year alone the tax bill topped $1 million. An illiquid asset, one that's hard to sell fast, doesn't care that someone died. It still sends bills. The Behavioral piece is the $295 million. Both families started from the same hopeful number. One deal closed, two years later and 24% lower.
Your version is smaller, but it works the same way. If your plan leaves a house to more than one child, read the will or trust this week for one thing. Find the line that says who pays the property tax, insurance and upkeep from the day you die until the day the house sells. Then check that there's cash to cover a year or two of those bills, in the estate or from a life insurance policy. Heirs with no cash for the wait often sell in a hurry, or they fight. Bring that page to your next review. In Naples, nobody waits for the storm to buy plywood.