Star Island, Palm Island & Hibiscus Island: Three Different Neighborhoods

Star Island: The Smallest, Most Exclusive, Most Guarded

Star Island is the smallest of the three by home count and the most singularly exclusive by structure. Developed by Carl Fisher -- the same figure credited as a founding force behind Miami Beach's own development -- and completed in 1922 on roughly 86.5 acres, the island holds a reported roughly 34 home sites arranged along a single, clockwise loop road, Star Island Drive. Its first home was designed by Miami architect Walter De Garmo and built in 1924. Star Island has the clearest, most consistently documented single-entrance, staffed-guardhouse access of the three islands, with non-residents unable to drive onto the island without advance approval from a resident -- pedestrian and bicycle access face similar restrictions. It is also the island with the two most concretely documented, dated celebrity real estate transactions on this page family: Gloria and Emilio Estefan's December 1986 purchase of their estate for $600,000, its September 2021 sale to Sean 'Diddy' Combs for $35 million, and Combs's own July 2026 resale for $55 million.

Palm Island: The Largest by Home Count, With a Genuine Waterfront/Interior Split

Palm Island is the largest of the three islands by number of homes, with roughly 136 reported on about 82 acres, and it is structured differently from Star Island in a way that matters for a buyer: multiple real estate research sources describe Palm Island as offering both waterfront and interior lots, meaning it includes a genuine tier of homes without direct water access, sitting instead on interior streets -- a layout Star Island's single-loop-road design essentially doesn't have. Palm Island is also the site of the most thoroughly documented single historic property on any of the three islands: Al Capone's mansion at 93 Palm Avenue, purchased through a straw buyer for $40,000 in a deal that closed March 27, 1928, occupied by Capone until his death in January 1947 and by his widow Mae and son Sonny until Mae sold it in February 1952 for $54,000. That house stood for nearly a century before being demolished in August 2023 despite preservation efforts -- a real, recent example of how even historically significant homes on these islands are subject to private ownership decisions, not automatic landmark protection.

Hibiscus Island: A Documented Middle Ground

Hibiscus Island sits between the other two both geographically and, in a specific documented sense, structurally: it's reported at roughly 145 total homes on about 69 acres, with about 91 of those homes -- roughly 63% -- described as waterfront, making it more waterfront-dominant than Palm Island's mixed layout but not as uniformly waterfront as Star Island's ring design. Hibiscus Island shares its origin story closely with Palm Island: both were created by the Biscayne Bay Islands Company, with underlying land creation substantially finished by November 1919, and both share the same access bridge off the MacArthur Causeway rather than each having its own separate entrance the way Star Island does. Historically, the Palm/Hibiscus area together was home to the Latin Quarter Nightclub through the 1940s and into the 1950s, where performers described in local historical accounts include Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Tony Bennett -- a distinct piece of the islands' history from Star Island's own, separately developed identity.

What They Share

All three islands share the essential structural facts that define this market on this site: all are man-made, dredge-and-fill islands built out substantially in the same short window (roughly 1918 to 1922); all are reached exclusively from the public MacArthur Causeway via a private, gated spur road rather than an ordinary open street; all sit within the City of Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County, subject to the same combined property tax millage, the same seawall ordinance, and the same short-term-rental restrictions covered elsewhere on this page family; and all three are represented by the same joint voluntary community organization, the Palm, Hibiscus and Star Islands (PHS) Home Association. For most of the practical ownership questions this site covers -- property tax, insurance, storm risk, seawall compliance -- the three islands function essentially identically, and this page family generally addresses them together for exactly that reason.

What Genuinely Differs -- and Why It Matters to a Buyer

Where the islands genuinely differ is scale, layout, and the specific character that flows from each: Star Island's small size (roughly 34 homes) and single-loop-road design make it the most tightly controlled and, by reputation, the most singularly prestigious address of the three, with the most documented recent celebrity transaction activity. Palm Island's larger size (roughly 136 homes) and mixed waterfront/interior layout make it the island where a buyer has the most range of price points and lot types to choose from, alongside the deepest documented historical pedigree via the Capone estate. Hibiscus Island's middle-ground size (roughly 145 homes, ~91 waterfront) and shared access with Palm Island give it a somewhat more understated profile in the real estate research this page reviewed, without a documented flagship celebrity transaction on the scale of the Estefan/Combs sales or the specific historic weight of the Capone estate -- which doesn't mean less desirable, only less individually documented in the sources this page could verify.

For a buyer choosing among the three, the practical questions worth asking directly are less about which island carries more prestige in the abstract, and more concrete: does a specific listing have genuine waterfront and dock access (more reliably true on Star Island, a real question to verify on Palm and Hibiscus); how does that specific island's gate-access and HOA-membership process work for a new owner; and which island's overall character -- Star Island's tighter, single-loop exclusivity versus Palm and Hibiscus's larger, more varied inventory -- actually fits the buyer's goals.

Confirming Which Island a Specific Listing Is On

Because these three islands are frequently marketed and reported on together as a single 'Star, Palm and Hibiscus Islands' neighborhood -- including in the market-pricing data cited elsewhere on this page family -- a buyer should confirm exactly which of the three islands, and which specific street address, a listing sits on before assuming shared market statistics (like the combined median sale price or days-on-market figures cited elsewhere on this site) describe that specific island accurately. This page did not find island-by-island pricing data separated out from the combined three-island figures, and a buyer's agent working this market should be able to speak to how, if at all, pricing patterns actually differ among the three at any given moment.