Residents of a Florida Trailer Park Soon to Be Millionaires

The community of Briny Breezes, Florida, sits on 43 acres of prime beachfront property between Miami and Palm Beach. The town began as a strawberry farm nearly a century ago, and a group of regular visitors to the area bought the property in 1958. Five years later it was incorporated as a town.

Briny Breezes is a throwback to old Florida, and is one of the last coastal trailer-park communities in Florida. But it is now surrounded on all sides by multimillion-dollar homes and colorful high-rise condos that dwarf the 488 mobile homes. The community is run as a corporation by a board of directors, and each resident owns shares based on the size and location of their lot.

Instead of Briny Breezes being a reminder of how idyllic and peaceful Florida used to be, it will soon be just a memory. Residents of the town have voted overwhelmingly to sell their community to a developer for more than $510 million. The contract isn’t official yet, but if the sale goes through, nearly every owner will receive over $1 million. Some of the residents of Briny Breezes bought their homes for as little as $35,000.

About 80% of the town’s shareholders who voted approved of the sale, and only 17% opposed it, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the town’s corporate office. More than 97% of the town’s shareholders voted.

State and local officials have not yet approved the new zoning required to accommodate the 900 condominiums, marina, and luxury hotel being proposed by the developer, Ocean Land Investments of Boca Raton. Officials of Palm Beach County are concerned about adding yet another high-density development to the already-cluttered coastline of South Florida. The community of Briny Breezes is in a hurricane evacuation zone and there are few ways in or out of the area.

Logan Pierson, Ocean Land’s vice president of acquisitions, said that the company thinks they can allay any concerns the county might have. "We are not going to build a concrete jungle on the barrier island," he said. "We live here."

Soon the residents of Briny Breezes will no longer be able to make that statement. Although the residents will be sad to leave, most are comforted by the thought of becoming wealthy virtually overnight after the sale goes through, with their money being handed over in 2009. "I don’t think there is anyone that lives here that doesn’t love Briny," said Gay Sideris, who has lived there with her husband since 2001. Sideris and her husband paid $155,000 for their trailer six years ago, and now they stand to get about $1.5 million for it. "We’re happy it went through because it will be good for us and our family, but we’re sad we have to leave," Sideris said. "Now we can just concentrate on the great two years we have left here."

Even though he will probably receive more than $1 million for his two lots, 68-year-old Tom Byrne was downbeat as drove around the park Wednesday wearing a button that read, "Save Briny. Vote No." Byrne said, "I've lived here eight years. I'm surrounded by my friends. Why would I want to leave? I saved my whole life for a place like this."