What happened to the Office in the Grove building, and why does it matter to Coconut Grove condo buyers? Architect Kenneth Treister's Office in the Grove was demolished to make way for the Four Seasons Private Residences Coconut Grove, where new units are commanding roughly $3,000 per square foot — a case study in how the neighborhood's old bones are being traded for new construction premiums.
A Village That Grew Skyward
Coconut Grove has always sold itself on a feeling as much as a floor plan — canopy roads, a walkable village core, a sense that you're somewhere older and more human-scaled than the rest of Miami. A lot of that feeling was designed on purpose, by one man in particular: architect Kenneth Treister, who passed away this week at 96 after shaping the Grove's built environment for more than half a century.
Treister designed the Mayfair House Hotel and Shops, Elizabeth Virrick Park, the Yacht Harbour Condominium, and the Office in the Grove — the second office building ever constructed in the neighborhood. He lived in the Grove for thirty years, in a home he designed himself, and he was famously insistent that trees, not towers, were what gave a city its scale. Many of the trees still shading Main Highway and Grand Avenue today were planted under his direction.
That history matters right now, because it's colliding directly with the biggest thing happening in the Coconut Grove condo market: the rise of ultra-luxury new construction on sites that used to hold exactly the kind of mid-century, human-scaled buildings Treister spent his career designing.
The Office in the Grove Becomes the Four Seasons
Treister's Office in the Grove, on South Bayshore Drive, is gone. In its place: the Four Seasons Private Residences Coconut Grove, a 20-story, 70-residence tower developed by CMC Group and Fort Partners, designed by Revuelta Architecture International with interiors by Michele Bönan and landscaping by Raymond Jungles. It's Florida's first standalone Four Seasons-branded residential tower — no hotel attached, just full Four Seasons service wrapped around private homes.
The numbers tell the story of where the Coconut Grove condo market has landed:
Residences range from roughly 2,025 to 3,975 square feet, with penthouses up to 9,700 square feet
Pricing starts around $5.6–$6 million, with per-square-foot pricing landing near $3,000 — above Park Grove's building-wide average of roughly $2,300/sq ft (though top-floor Park Grove units have sold as high as $3,800/sq ft) and well above Grove at Grand Bay (around $1,800–$1,900/sq ft)
The building sits on a 1.16-acre bayfront parcel directly across from Regatta Harbour and Dinner Key, within walking distance of CocoWalk
Completion is targeted for 2028, and the project was already more than 50% pre-sold at groundbreaking
For context, Coconut Grove's price-per-square-foot has climbed steadily for roughly fifteen years — more consistently than Brickell, Miami Beach, or Sunny Isles, according to local market data. The Four Seasons isn't an outlier; it's the clearest expression yet of where new construction condos in Coconut Grove are headed.
Weighing New Construction Against What the Grove Used to Be
Here's the tension worth sitting with, whether you're a buyer, a seller, or just someone who loves this neighborhood: new construction condos in Coconut Grove offer real, tangible advantages — post-2002 building codes, resilient concrete construction, modern floor plans, hurricane-rated glass, and amenity packages that older buildings simply can't retrofit. For buyers prioritizing turnkey living and long-term structural confidence, that's not a small thing.
But Treister's own reaction to the Grove's changing skyline is worth remembering. In one of his last conversations about the neighborhood, he was reportedly stunned by how much scale had shifted since he'd last walked it — struck by how visible the high-rises had become from as far away as Coral Gables. Scale, to him, wasn't an aesthetic preference. It was the entire argument for why the Grove worked as a village instead of a downtown.
That doesn't mean buyers should avoid new construction, and it doesn't mean every older building deserves to stand forever. It means Coconut Grove's value — historically and in the current market — has always come from holding both things at once: the tree canopy and the architecture, the old bones and the new builds, the village feel and the investment-grade square footage. Buildings like the Mayfair have shown that renovation and reinvestment can preserve a landmark's character while modernizing it for today's market — proof that "new" and "preserved" aren't always opposites in the Grove.
What This Means If You're Buying or Selling in Coconut Grove
If you're evaluating Coconut Grove condos right now — whether in the 33133 core or along the Bayshore corridor — the Treister-to-Four-Seasons story is a useful lens, not just a piece of local trivia. New towers like the Four Seasons are resetting the top of the market and pulling comparable pricing upward across the neighborhood. At the same time, well-located resale properties in Treister-designed or -adjacent buildings — Mayfair, Yacht Harbour — carry a character premium that new construction can't replicate, even at three times the price per square foot.
Understanding which of those two stories your target property tells is part of pricing it correctly, whether you're listing a mid-century unit with real architectural pedigree or shopping a pre-construction floor plan at 2699 South Bayshore.
FAQ: Coconut Grove Condos and New Construction
What is the Four Seasons Private Residences Coconut Grove? It's a 20-story, 70-unit luxury condo tower at 2699 South Bayshore Drive, built on the former site of Kenneth Treister's Office in the Grove building. Units range from roughly 2,025 to 3,975 square feet, with pricing starting near $5.6–$6 million and completion targeted for 2028.
Why are Coconut Grove condo prices per square foot so high right now? New construction towers like the Four Seasons and Park Grove have reset pricing expectations, with per-square-foot costs in the $3,000+ range driven by waterfront land scarcity, modern building standards, and branded-residence premiums. Coconut Grove's price-per-square-foot has trended upward consistently for over a decade.
Are there still Kenneth Treister-designed buildings standing in Coconut Grove? Yes. The Mayfair House Hotel and Shops, the Yacht Harbour Condominium, and Elizabeth Virrick Park were all designed by Treister and remain in the neighborhood today, with Mayfair having undergone a recent, character-preserving renovation.
Thinking About Coconut Grove?
Whether you're drawn to a pre-construction unit at the Four Seasons or a resale home with real architectural history behind it, the Grove rewards buyers who understand both stories. I'd be glad to walk you through what's currently available on either end of that spectrum — send me a message and let's talk about what fits.
Want more context on the architect behind this story? Watch the video above for a closer look at Kenneth Treister, his work in Coconut Grove, and the vision that helped shape the neighborhood before today's condo boom.
Guillermo Freixas President, My Block Group — Real Estate Advisor SERHANT. | Coconut Grove · Coral Gables · Sunrise Harbour
