Faena House

Faena House is one of the smallest and most exclusive residential buildings in Miami Beach: roughly 47 oceanfront residences designed by Foster + Partners for Alan Faena, at the heart of Mid-Beach's Faena District. It is not a hundred-unit tower with a fluid resale market; it is a scarce asset that rarely changes hands, and that scarcity defines how you buy it.

Delivered in 2015, Faena House rose at 3315 Collins Avenue as the residential piece of the Faena District —the cultural neighborhood Alan Faena developed with Len Blavatnik (Access Industries), which also includes the hotel, Rem Koolhaas's Faena Forum and the bazaar. Foster + Partners designed a building of clean lines and passive form, with its iconic wraparound balconies —the brise-soleil that filter the sun and open each residence to the sea as a veranda in the sky.

For the buyer, what matters is not the brochure: it is understanding that this is a building that rarely has units available. Faena House set a Miami price record when Ken Griffin bought his penthouse for roughly US$60 million in 2015. With fewer than fifty residences in total, months can pass without a single resale or rental. This page orders what is available —live inventory, how to read value, and the buying process— so that when the right unit appears, you arrive with judgment and speed.

What makes Faena House different

Faena House's value is not the count of amenities but the combination of an architectural signature, a tiny scale, and a location that anchors an entire cultural district. Among what defines it:

• Foster + Partners signature one of the few Miami residential buildings designed by Norman Foster's studio, with generous floor plates, floor-to-ceiling glass and the wraparound balconies that became its visual hallmark.
• Tiny scale around 47 residences across 18 floors: secondary supply is minimal and highly contested, the opposite of the corridor's hundred-unit towers.
• Oceanfront in the Faena District directly on the Atlantic and steps from the Faena Hotel, Rem Koolhaas's Faena Forum and the bazaar —a curated cultural neighborhood, not just a beach address.
• Price record the penthouse Ken Griffin bought for roughly US$60 million in 2015 set a Miami record and fixed the building's prestige benchmark.

How the value reads: view, floor and line

In a one-of-a-kind building, two units of the same size can be worth very different amounts. Three variables explain almost the entire price difference:

The view

In a building this small, every line and floor weighs more than in a large tower. Direct-ocean residences —east exposure— command the premium; those facing the Intracoastal and the city trade below, though they get the sunsets. But ahead of the view, what sets price here is availability: with so few units, a well-located resale rarely waits for a buyer.

The floor

Price per square foot rises with height: more light, less obstruction and, on the high floors, the best view. The value jump between the mid-rise and the upper floors is usually larger than the square footage suggests.

The line

Each line —the stack of units sharing a position on the floor plate— has its own terrace and exposure. Knowing which line you're looking at, and its resale equivalent, is the difference between paying market and overpaying. This is where an advisor who knows the building adds real value.

The resale thesis

Buying in resale, rather than preconstruction, removes construction and delivery risk: the building is built, the district operates and the unit is physical. At Faena House the challenge is not risk but access: inventory is so scarce that the decision is often made on a single available unit, not on a menu of options.

The right question is not whether Faena House is good —it is, and its scarcity protects it— but whether the specific unit is well bought: price per square foot against the building's few recent sales, the quality of the line and exposure, and the margin against what it would ask in rent. For the investor dollarizing into a trophy asset with a signed-architecture pedigree and an irreproducible beachfront, a well-chosen unit combines brand, scarcity and design the market cannot replicate.

Faena House is the most exclusive piece of a wider corridor; to see how the Miami Beach market moves and compare it against other oceanfront towers, browse all residential inventory for sale on the hub.