Pine Tree Drive & La Gorce

Pine Tree Drive is one of Miami Beach's most iconic residential streets, stretching from 23rd to 63rd Street and lined with the Australian pines John Collins planted as a windbreak more than a century ago. David has represented the buyer in three closed sales on the street — the $7.5 million Huizenga family sale at 5941 Pine Tree Drive, $5.7 million at 4395, and $3.7 million at 4912 — nearly $17 million in Pine Tree Drive transactions. The surrounding La Gorce neighborhood offers wide, tree-canopied streets with a mix of historic and contemporary estates.

Pine Tree Drive: Miami Beach's Most Iconic Residential Street

Pine Tree Drive runs north-south through the heart of Miami Beach from 23rd Street to 63rd Street — roughly 2.5 miles — and has been one of the city's premier residential addresses since the 1930s. What makes Pine Tree immediately recognizable — even to someone who has never been to Miami Beach — is the canopy. Two rows of Australian pines line the street, planted as a windbreak more than a century ago and standing fifty to sixty feet today, their canopies closing overhead to filter the Florida sun and hold a microclimate noticeably cooler than the surrounding blocks.

This is not an accident. The tree canopy on Pine Tree Drive is the product of nearly a century of intentional planting and careful preservation. The oldest trees on the street were planted before the street was a street, and successive generations of homeowners and the City of Miami Beach have protected them. The result is a streetscape that has no equivalent in South Florida — a mature, cathedral-like canopy that makes Pine Tree Drive feel more like a Savannah boulevard than a barrier island road.

The homes along Pine Tree reflect the full arc of Miami Beach's architectural history. You will find original Mediterranean Revival estates from the 1930s, mid-century modern gems from the 1950s and 1960s, and contemporary new construction that has arrived in the current building wave. Lot sizes range from 10,000 to over 25,000 square feet, with the largest parcels concentrated between 41st and 63rd Streets where the street runs through the La Gorce neighborhood. Most lots are non-waterfront — Pine Tree Drive runs through the interior of the island — but the depth, width, and canopy coverage of these properties give them an estate-like character that waterfront lots on narrower streets cannot match.

The street's central location is another advantage. Pine Tree Drive sits between Indian Creek Drive to the east and North Bay Road to the west, putting residents minutes from the beach, Biscayne Bay, the La Gorce Country Club, and the dining and shopping corridors of 41st Street and Bal Harbour. It is a residential street that is deeply embedded in the fabric of Miami Beach rather than isolated from it.

History and Character: From John Collins's Windbreak to Today

Pine Tree Drive's history is inseparable from the history of Miami Beach itself, and it begins with a farmer rather than a developer. John Collins, the New Jersey horticulturist who bought 1,675 acres of the island in 1909 at the age of 71, planted a double hedgerow of Australian pines along the eastern edge of his avocado and mango groves. They were a windbreak, not landscaping. The plat map recorded in December 1912 already shows the plantation road flanked by an avenue of pines, and the city's 2020 Urban Forestry Master Plan dates the planting to as early as 1910. The street that grew up between those two rows took its name from them.

Carl Fisher wanted them trimmed. In a letter dated September 14, 1920, he asked Thomas Pancoast and the Miami Beach Improvement Company to cut the pines back because they were hurting lot sales, writing that “the sale of our property there is worth so much more to us than the slight protection these trees give to the fruit.” He was right about the lots and wrong about the trees. A century later the lots are worth what they are because of them, and Fisher and the Improvement Company went on to keep the pines deliberately, calling them a wonderful asset.

By the 1930s and 1940s, Pine Tree Drive had become one of the most fashionable addresses in Miami Beach. The corridor filled with prominent winter estates commissioned from New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The architectural style of the era — Mediterranean Revival with barrel-tile roofs, stucco walls, and lush courtyard gardens — established the aesthetic DNA that still defines many blocks of the street today.

Through the mid-century decades, Pine Tree Drive attracted a new wave of buyers drawn by the modernist architecture emerging in Miami Beach. Architects like Morris Lapidus, Robert Swarthburg, and Igor Polevitzky designed homes along the corridor that blended indoor-outdoor living with clean geometric forms — a style that has become enormously collectible in the current market.

The street experienced the same cycles of neglect and renewal that affected all of Miami Beach. Through the 1970s and 1980s, many of the grand estates were subdivided, converted, or simply left to deteriorate. The renaissance began in the late 1990s and has accelerated dramatically since 2015. Today, the older homes that remain are being either meticulously restored or replaced with contemporary estates by top architecture firms. The tree canopy has survived every cycle, and Collins's original pines are now well over a century old. Their scale gives Pine Tree Drive a gravitas that new developments, no matter how expensive, cannot manufacture. It is also finite. Australian pines can no longer be cultivated or planted anywhere in Miami-Dade County, so every original pine that comes down is gone for good.

The Pine Tree Drive Market: July 2026

The numbers below come directly from closed MLS sales and are updated quarterly. As of July 2026, the trailing 24 months on Pine Tree Drive look like this:

• 17 single-family closings since July 2024
• Median sale price: $6.2 million
• Range: $1.95 million to $24 million
• Median price per square foot: roughly $1,300, with top-tier sales trading between $2,400 and $3,400 per square foot
• Five closings at $10 million or above — three of them between $23.75 million and $24 million
• Four single-family homes actively listed, priced from $4.45 million to $6.8 million

The headline is the ceiling. Pine Tree Drive was long described — including by this page — as a $3 million to $15 million corridor. That description is out of date. Since late 2024, three homes on the street have closed between $23.75 million and $24 million, and the strongest of those traded at more than $3,300 per square foot. A non-waterfront street in Mid Beach is now producing sale prices that a few years ago required a bayfront lot.

What has not changed is the shape of the opportunity. Entry to the street still starts around $2 million for homes that need work, and the middle of the market — renovated homes on generous lots under the canopy — trades in the $4 million to $9 million range. The northern stretch through La Gorce (41st to 63rd Streets), with its 15,000-to-25,000-square-foot lots, is where the estate-scale sales concentrate, and it is where the street's new ceiling was set.

David Hunt Solomon has represented the buyer in three closed sales on Pine Tree Drive — the $7.5 million Huizenga family home at 5941, $5.7 million at 4395, and $3.7 million at 4912 — nearly $17 million in transactions on this one street. Three times, a buyer choosing this street chose David to get them onto it. The Huizenga purchase sits in the heart of this market: a significant property on a large lot in the La Gorce section, bought by a client who recognized the combination of location, lot size, and canopy coverage that makes northern Pine Tree Drive irreplaceable. David has since handled the leasing of 5941 as well — four transactions of one kind or another on a street he clearly keeps coming back to.

New construction continues to drive the top of the market. Older homes are acquired at land value and replaced with modern 6,000-to-10,000-square-foot homes with open floor plans, glass walls, and resort-scale pools. The best of these builds respect the street's character — maintaining setbacks, preserving mature trees where possible, and using materials that complement rather than compete with the canopy. It is these finished contemporary homes that are commanding the $2,400-plus per square foot prices reshaping what the street is worth.

Why Buyers Choose Pine Tree Drive

Pine Tree Drive appeals to a buyer who has a specific set of priorities — and who understands that the most valuable features of a property are not always the ones you can see from a drone photograph.

The canopy is the first reason. Pine Tree Drive has one of the finest mature canopies in Miami Beach — the pines John Collins planted as a windbreak have been growing since before 1912, and the canopy now shades nearly 40 city blocks. Trees that old create shade, privacy, beauty, and a sense of permanence that new landscaping cannot replicate. Buyers who have lived in older neighborhoods in the northeast or in European cities instinctively understand the value of a mature streetscape. Pine Tree Drive delivers that in a tropical setting.

The lot sizes are the second reason. Non-waterfront lots on Pine Tree Drive, particularly in the La Gorce section, offer 15,000 to 25,000 square feet of land — comparable in size to waterfront lots on the Venetian Islands or Sunset Islands, but at a fraction of the price. A buyer who wants to build a 7,000-square-foot home with a pool, motor court, and deep setbacks can do so on Pine Tree Drive for $3 million to $5 million in land cost. The same lot footprint on a waterfront street would start at $10 million.

The privacy is the third reason. Pine Tree Drive's mature hedgerows, estate walls, and deep setbacks create a level of residential privacy that is rare on Miami Beach, where most streets are built to maximum density. Homes on Pine Tree Drive do not feel like they are on a barrier island — they feel like they are on a private estate. The canopy overhead and the vegetation around the perimeter combine to create an environment that is genuinely secluded, even though you are minutes from the beach, the bay, and every amenity Miami Beach has to offer.

The value is the fourth reason. Dollar for dollar, Pine Tree Drive delivers more house, more land, and more character per dollar than any comparable address in Miami Beach. Buyers who are priced out of North Bay Road waterfront ($15 million to $75 million) or who do not need direct water access often find that Pine Tree Drive gives them everything they actually want — size, privacy, beauty, location — at a price point that leaves room to invest in a truly exceptional home.

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David Hunt Solomon has 20 years of expertise in Miami Beach luxury real estate and has closed more than $500 million in career sales.