The Closing: Gil Dezer – The Real Deal

Gil Dezer (Photos by Sonya Revell)

Any screenwriter who pitched the character of Gil Dezer to a Hollywood studio would be laughed out of the room. A chain-smoking, gold chain-wearing, foul-mouthed developer who owns the Aston Martin DB5 James Bond drove in Goldfinger and was married at Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago?

The 46-year-old president of the development firm started by his father, Dezer might be straight out of central casting, but hes also a genuine innovator. Dezer pioneered the practice of partnering with luxury lifestyle brands on condominium projects. His marquee developments include the Porsche Design Tower and Residences by Armani/Casa as well as six Trump-branded towers, all in Sunny Isles Beach, where his family has amassed more than 27 developable acres on the oceanfront.

All told, Dezers firm has sold more than $4 billion worth of condos some 3,000 units. It recently received approval for a $1.5 billion mixed-use project in North Miami Beach after a contentious rezoning. The family also owns over 1 million square feet of commercial space in New York City.

Dezer has attracted plenty of controversy with his take-no-prisoners management style and long partnership and friendship with Donald Trump. But he is unapologetic. We live on, he said in a conversation with The Real Deal. I think I did everything right. Up until now.

Born: March 1, 1975Lives: Trump Palace, Sunny Isles BeachHometown: Tenafly, New JerseyFamily: Daughters Daniela, 11; Alexandra, 8

I dont necessarily show it off.

I never really thought about it that way. I have an anonymous Instagram account where all I do is show my toys. I have 70,000-odd followers. Some people tell me, Hey, youre my inspiration. Which makes me feel bad. I hope they find better inspiration.

I have a Bugatti Veyron. They made only 300 of them. I have a Porsche 918, they made only 918 of them. I have number 305, which is cool for Miami [its area code is 305]. These things are assets like any other asset. But you get to play with them and have fun with them. You cant play with your Coca-Cola stock.

Hes a straight collector. He enjoys the transaction of buying, and he enjoys owning the car and looking at the car. I remember in fifth grade, he had 36 cars. I thought that was normal. He has over 1,500 cars today. Me, I love driving.

Its an intense seven, eight days of your life. You have to drive through the streets and obviously not get caught by police, but theres more to it. Theres the camaraderie and the friends you meet. You just wind up getting pulled over with some wild people. I get the best memes and jokes out of it.

We were slamming it the whole time. It was L.A. to Miami and we were the first ones to the checkpoints, the first ones to the hotel every single day. It was a great run, and we got lucky. The best plan you can have is a great radar detector, and thats it. A flat tire, the simplest things could go wrong. I remember getting the trophy. We drank a little bit too much, so by the time I actually had the trophy in my hands, I fell off the stage.

I didnt know until I got to university. I was born in Queens, New York. When I was 7 years old, we moved to Tenafly, New Jersey, into a beautiful house. It wasnt a mansion. So we were still very humble in that respect. I think thats the reason why Im so not humble now, is because I was like, Fuck this nonsense, growing up.

What he saw and what he always sees is what makes him the visionary. What he saw was a way to make money. He started a very interesting business called Automatic Typing, which is whats todays junk mail. You typed on one typewriter and it was connected to 500 other typewriters. He started buying up his competitors. He was buying the Brooklyn competitor, the Queens guy, the Bronx guy. To the point where he needed so much space in Manhattan, he found it easier to buy his own building.

$200,000, something ridiculous like that. He understood that individual floors in the neighborhood were selling for as much as $50,000 [as commercial condos]. One thing he did, which was in retrospect one of the best things he could have ever done for the entire family, was he kept the storefronts and the penthouses of each one of these buildings.

We still own these properties here and there. I think the last one we sold for $9 million, and we bought a strip mall with it. Its all worked out.

How to negotiate, how to be patient, know when youre winning, know when youre losing. One thing about my father is the guy can pivot 45 times in a five-second period. He doesnt allow himself to get stuck in one way. Thats always worked for him because hes dynamically moving around through good and bad markets.

I own the best piece of dirt in the entire United States today [in Sunny Isles Beach], so to go put something mediocre up there would be horrible. Ive traveled around the world, Ive seen great things, Ive understood different ways of doing things. I wouldnt call myself a guru of construction, but I understand enough to be dangerous.

Not just that, but were a bit more dynamic of a company than your typical developer, because when we were buying these motels [now development sites], we were actually running them as motels. The Thunderbird hotel, which is an iconic hotel for the last 70 years here in Miami, we were making money there. That gave us the ability to wait.

Gil Dezer, president of Dezer Development, with his supercars

I was 19 years old, at the University of Miami. We had owned that hotel on 87th Street [in Miami Beach, now home to Terra Groups Eighty Seven Park]. We found that one or two guys at the car rental desks at the airport were sending us a tremendous amount of business. So we said, well, if thats working, lets push that button.

I started going down to the airport. Id hit all the rental car desks. I would meet all the agents and give them this pass that said, Luxury for Less, Rooms for $69. And all the guest had to do was hand over that pass when they came to the hotel. I was paying $5 per night commission to these rental car desk guys.

It was unbelievable, until their bosses started seeing what I was doing. I got thrown out the first time. Of course, that didnt stop me. I went back, I got thrown out the second time. By the third time they said, Listen, we know what youre doing. If you come back, were going to arrest you. Thats guerrilla marketing right there.

The car rallies. Im meeting like-minded, well-heeled people who are as loud as I am, if not louder Im actually one of the quiet guys there. Ive sold apartments on those rallies to Bugatti owners who love the idea of the car elevator.

How do you answer that question without sounding like a jerk? Im the guy who says, Hey, Ive been to the nicest hotels in the world and they have swimming pools in every one of their suites. How come nobody ever did that in Miami? But I dont just say, Go put a swimming pool on the balcony. I get involved in every single aspect, [such as] the sight line from the pool. What are you looking at when youre sitting in the pool? I dont want to put you in a pool and youre looking right at your neighbor thats stupid.

Heres the best part: The guy paid cash. Meaning he didnt start, Give me this, give me that because Im famous. He came in and he liked the apartment so much, he paid for it. That, to me, is a pat on the back.

It started off as a branding agreement. We were building a condo-hotel in Sunny Isles Beach, and we werent getting traction. When we heard that Trump was running around, looking for stuff, he was actually about to sign a deal [at the site now home to the Continuum in Miami Beach]. So we said, Hey Donald, look, we have multiple towers for you, not just one or two. And we were able to convince them to come to Sunny Isles.

I learned the value of placing a brand. Donald Trump was the real estate brand. I had the ability to get to know him. I went with him to Miss Universe a couple of times, and of course Mar-a-Lago [where Dezer got married in 2007] was right around the corner from us.

In 2009, when everybody was losing buildings left, right and center, we redid our loans on all the projects. By 2011, I was able to pay off $475 million of loans by selling the units one by one. [Trump] always gave us a lot of credit for that.

At the time, you opened the newspaper and this guy was bankrupt and that guy lost his building. So we wanted to let the world know, Hey, were successful. It got us a lot of notoriety, and more importantly, it got a lot of banks to start calling me to help them out with their problems.

Not for a minute. I know the man, he is a great man. Some of the things he did, of course, nobody agreed with all the time. But his heart was in the right place. He wanted to put the country first. And I agree with almost all of his policies. It was a great moment when he became president, and I hope it happens again.

A lot of these writers are not qualified to be writing about business, unfortunately. Russians buy brands. The joke is, When does a Russian get a new Mercedes? When the ashtrays full. They like brands.

Trump would have made the same amount of money from me whether the guy [buyer] is from Zimbabwe, China or wherever. A sales a sale. It wasnt like he was grabbing Russians by the ear and saying, Hey, go buy my building.

I dont think Id be in it directly. Its like being on your condo board. You do all the work and nobody says thank you for it.

Whats the flip side of the conversation? Oh, youre Venezuelan? Oh. And youre friends with Chavez? Im not going to sell you an apartment. Its not like people are walking in with suitcases of cash. If you say no, youre discriminating automatically, if he wants to make a stink about it. And were happy to make a sale, so we dont say no.

The problem falls on the banking side. If this guys wiring money that he stole from Venezuela into Switzerland, and back to the Caymans, back to Miami, thats where the problem is. We, unfortunately, cannot start saying who we want and who we dont want.

Completely evolved. I have a top tier of seven executives that I speak to now. They dont mind if I use foul language theyre not sensitive and thats the easiest way. And they help execute for me. When I started, I was doing everything myself. I didnt have a real company. I was a one-man show. I was young and stressed and made it happen. We had some employees who didnt like it, but it is what it is. And now we have a real company. We have an HR department who teaches us what we can say and what we cant.

I dont get excited at smaller things anymore. Having kids [two daughters with ex-wife Lorena; the couple divorced in 2017] has been the greatest thing thats ever happened to me. I do homework with them, to the extent that I even know what theyre learning. I remember my parents saying, Oh, the kids these days. Im starting to feel like that. The kids these days, they play Roblox [an online gaming platform], and to bond, you have to get it. But then your stockbroker calls you up and he says, Hey, Roblox is about to go public. You want to buy some? And I knew thats probably going to be a good bet because Im $40 a week into that thing.

That happens the minute you meet your new child. You feel like such a piece of shit for all the bad things you did to your parents.

I am personally not, no.

Im not going to answer that.

Success is not a number, because theres almost nothing that I cant buy today. When you complete on your word, when you do what you say youre going to do, and come out with a new, beautiful baby these buildings are my babies thats success.

Im a smoker. I recently gauged myself at a pack and a half a day. I went once for hypnosis, to quit. The hypnotist started talking to me and I started asking questions and she said, Ive never met anybody like you in my whole life. She pretty much gave up on me.

Go here to see the original:

The Closing: Gil Dezer - The Real Deal