Miami Herald | 3 Generations Real Estate Business

February,03 2020
Like many Miamians, Alicia Cervera came from another world. Before Fidel Castro took power, Cervera lived with the privileges that came with a diplomatic background — her father was Peruvian ambassador to the United Nations — and international business as the wife of a sugar producer.

The Cuban Revolution stripped her family of its holdings, and like so many others, she fled in 1961 with her husband Javier to join their young daughters in Miami.
“I remember, when I lived in the U.S. as a youth, I had the honor of being invited to the home of Mrs. [Eleanor] Roosevelt for a luncheon,” she mused. “Then, one day, I had to start from scratch.”
Vision and hard work prevailed. Fifty years later, the firm she launched in 1969 remains one of Miami’s most successful luxury condo brokerages. Today Cervera Real Estate has eight South Florida offices and more than 300 employees. The firm has sold more than 115 high-rise condominiums, representing over $12 billion in sales of more than 60,000 units.
Three generations of Cervera women still work there. Alicia Sr., as she is often called, is chairman. Veronica Cervera Goeseke is CEO; Alicia Jr. — Alicia Cervera Lamadrid — is managing partner. Granddaughters Alexandra Goeseke and Alicia Lamadrid Paysse are directors of company divisions.
But Alicia Sr. and Javier almost didn’t make it to the U.S. As the couple was about to depart via the plane of the Mexican ambassador, Cuban military guards stopped the flight and pulled Alicia from the aircraft. The ambassador hid Javier and refused to depart until Alicia was safely back on board.
In Miami, they were safely reunited with daughters Veronica, then 6, and Alicia, 3, who had been sent ahead with a nanny.
“That made me think,” said Cervera, now 89 years old. “I never had to reach for anything before because I had everything I ever needed. All of a sudden I had nothing. Adjusting to a different culture was challenging. Starting over was daunting.”

Javier worked first for a sugar mill in Okeechobee, then at a cement company owned by the family of the late Maurice Ferré.
Cervera could see how Miami even then was changing from a small resort town to a more international city. Thanks to her background, she was able to connect with the wealthy Latin Americans just beginning to buy here in a way other real estate brokers couldn’t. And she was familiar with real estate; her mother had been a pioneering home developer in Peru.
In the early 1970s, Cervera got an important break when New York developer Harry Helmsley, husband of ‘Queen of Mean’ Leona Helmsley, announced he would build the Palace Condominium on Brickell Avenue. Cervera wrote him a letter pitching her services; to her surprise, he gave her a phone call, setting a meeting at his Palm Beach home.
Goeseke, the CEO, recalled the trip. “So we drove to Palm Beach and she went up and I stayed in the lobby,” she said. “When she came down, she said, ‘I don’t know how strong Mrs. Helmsley is, but she said ‘Alicia, I really like you, and you need this job. I’m going to have Harry give you this.’ ” Cervera became the exclusive sales agent for the project.
Cervera shared her success, recommending architect Bernardo Fort-Brescia, who was then teaching at the University of Miami, where daughter Veronica studied engineering. Said Cervera, “I invited them for dinner at my house, with the owner of this little piece of land on Biscayne Bay. They hit it off, and the Babylon Apartments, which won many architectural awards and was just recently torn down, was built there.”
Recalled Fort-Brescia, “She knew the developer. He was very bold and willing to do something different, and he was a structural engineer, so he was able to figure out how to put it together.” Cervera understood modern architecture at a time when it wasn’t as prevalent in Miami. Fort-Brescia and Cervera developed a bond, he said. “Our beginnings were together, and we still do projects together.”
Fort-Brescia’s firm, Arquitectonica, went on to design the Palace. The two firms also worked together on a Brickell Avenue signature that would rocket Arquitectonica to stardom: The Atlantis.
The 20-floor condo tower featuring a red spiral and five-story-high cut-out window was featured in the introduction sequence to the hit TV show “Miami Vice” and the movie ”Scarface.” The public may not have known the name Arquitectonica, but it came to know its work and the city it called home. In an era before starchitecture, this was about as close as you could get.
To all of her projects, Cervera has brought more than sales savvy and market knowledge, say those who have worked with her.
One of those is David Martin, co-founder and president of Terra Group. He and his co-founder and father, Pedro, have worked with Cervera for 15 years on multiple projects.
“When you sit in a meeting with Alicia,” Martin said, “she commands the room with her listening skills and vision for what a development or neighborhood will become.
“She has an uncanny ability to understand people and communicate with them in an authentic way, which is critical in the real estate business.”
One of those neighborhoods was the South of Fifth enclave of South Beach. The Related Group, which was transitioning from an affordable-housing developer to the luxury market, chose Cervera to sell the 44-story Portofino Tower, the first high-rise on South Pointe. Their joint success led to a cluster of towers: Murano at Portofino, Murano Grande, Yacht Club at Portofino, Icon at the east end of the MacArthur Causeway.
Cervera brought in a helicopter company to show prospective buyers the views they would enjoy at Portofino; daughter Veronica Goeseke came up with the idea of throwing a lavish clambake on the beach.
The Related-Cervera partnership lasted a decade. Alicia Sr. “was the first one to get to the sales center and the last one to leave,” said Carlos Rosso, president of Related Group’s luxury condo division. “Super-witty and sharp, she’s a real professional with impeccable work ethics and a beautiful sense of humor.”
Cervera still actively runs the company she created. “She’s a role model, not only because she’s a woman and a businesswoman, but at 89, she’s still running a company, showing up every day, and contributing in very amazing ways,” said Cervera Lamadrid. “From the wisdom that she has, from her history, but also as the forward-thinking visionary that she is.”

Cervera Lamadrid recalled a meeting with architects a decade ago, when Alicia Sr. was a mere 79.
“Everybody was looking at closets and bedroom sizes and whatever, and she hasn’t said a word,” her daughter recalled. “All of a sudden she looks up and she says, ‘The elevators are in the wrong place. We have to redesign this.’ The developer goes ‘oh my god, she’s right. Start over.’
“She was absolutely right, and it added to and enhanced the value of the building dramatically… It’s the difference of millions of dollars and quality of life for the people who are living there.”
Time hasn’t diminished her abilities, Cervera Lamadrid said. “The other day, we were in a meeting about a commercial office space... and all of a sudden she says, ‘Well, why can’t we make it a two-story retail space and pick up those added dollars?’’ It’s stuff like that, where everybody’s talking about A, B, C, and she’s jumping to Z.”
This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 7:00 AM.

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3 Generations Real Estate Business (Miami Herald)

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