The Well vs La Maré in Bay Harbor Islands: Amenities & wellness decision guide
Quick Summary
- Bay Harbor Islands skews boutique, walkable, and increasingly premium
- The WELL prioritizes wellness programming plus in-home health-focused features
- La Maré leans into waterfront terraces, leisure amenities, and boating lifestyle
- Compare starting prices, estimated HOA cadence, and how you’ll actually live
Bay Harbor Islands, distilled
Bay Harbor Islands has long appealed to buyers who want Miami’s coastal access without Miami’s constant spectacle. The scale is boutique, the streets are easy to learn, and the lifestyle is practical in the best way: close to the beach, close to dining, close to errands, and still distinctly residential.
Against that backdrop, two new condo concepts have become shorthand for two very different buyer psychologies. One treats wellness as an operating system. The other treats waterfront leisure as a permanent setting.
Two luxury lanes: wellness as ritual vs. waterfront as recreation
At a glance, both concepts sit in the same coveted zip code, both read as boutique, and both trade on the romance of the bay. Look closer and the divergence is immediate.
The wellness lane is about optimizing the hours you spend at home: how you sleep, how you recover, how the air feels, how the building supports routines rather than interrupts them. The leisure lane is about amplifying the reason you moved to the water in the first place: terraces, views, and the ease of stepping from residence to marina mentality.
For buyers who already own in Miami Beach or Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Islands can function as a calmer primary base. For second-home owners, it can be the right kind of quiet between travel days. Either way, the better match is the one that aligns with your default cadence, not your aspirational one.
The WELL: wellness, engineered into the address
The most important thing to understand about The Well Bay Harbor Islands is that it is not simply a building with a nice gym. It is positioned as a wellness-branded residential environment with a strong emphasis on amenities and programming.
Publicly marketed details outline 54 residences and more than 22,000 square feet of amenities. The design team is part of the message: Arquitectonica is listed for architecture and Meyer Davis for interiors, a pairing that typically signals a controlled, polished palette where materials and proportion do as much work as the view.
What makes the concept distinctive is the explicitly wellness-oriented menu. Marketing highlights a bath house, thermal experiences, and programmed wellness services. Residences are also described as integrating wellness-facing features such as air purification, aromatherapy, and red-light-related elements. In practice, the due-diligence question is not whether these features exist, but how they are delivered: what is included in ownership, what is access-based, and what becomes a membership-style add-on.
Price positioning is commonly marketed from roughly $1.25 million and up, with an estimated HOA cadence often quoted around $2.00 per square foot, acknowledging that budgets can evolve. Buyers should read that delta not as a penalty, but as a clue: you are paying for a building designed to be used like a daily club.
La Maré: the boating-forward, terrace-first proposition
La Maré Bay Harbor Islands answers a different prompt: what if the best part of Miami living is not self-improvement, but access and ease? Its marketing leans into waterfront living, bay views, and large terraces, with a clear nod to a marina-minded lifestyle.
La Maré is organized into collections with separate addresses and intentionally small residence counts. The Regency Collection is presented at 9927 E Bay Harbor Dr with 33 residences across eight stories. The Signature Collection is presented at 9781 E Bay Harbor Dr with nine residences across eight stories. That scarcity is not just a brag-it informs everything from elevator wait times to how private the pool deck feels.
The design credits are equally decisive: Kobi Karp Architecture & Interior Design is listed for the building, with interiors marketed as led by Debora Aguiar. Floor plans are marketed with large layouts, with the Regency Collection ranging roughly from 1,567 to 4,200+ square feet depending on plan.
The most buyer-relevant differentiator is the boating conversation. Marketing materials promote private boat slips, but availability and assignment are not universal. This is where a sophisticated buyer leans in: confirm whether a slip is included, reserved, purchasable separately, or limited to certain residences, and how that policy affects resale.
Pricing for the Regency Collection is commonly marketed from about $1.4 million and up, with HOA/maintenance often quoted around $1.20 per square foot, again subject to final budgets. Compared with a wellness-heavy building, the operating cost profile may feel more straightforward-especially for owners who use amenities seasonally rather than daily.
How to choose between them: five buyer profiles that make the decision easy
The right choice becomes obvious when you stop comparing brochures and start comparing behavior.
First, the routine-driven primary resident. If you live in Bay Harbor most of the year and you value a building that reinforces sleep, recovery, and structured wellness, The WELL’s premise is aligned. A bath house and thermal circuit only justify their footprint if you will use them.
Second, the boating-first owner. If you keep a boat, plan to keep a boat, or simply want the option to add one, La Maré’s slip-forward messaging is the core story. Even if you do not boat today, the market’s willingness to pay for that access can matter later.
Third, the entertainer who prioritizes terraces. La Maré’s waterfront positioning and terrace emphasis suit owners who host at home and want the residence to live like a resort suite with a kitchen.
Fourth, the buyer who sees carrying costs as lifestyle pricing. The WELL’s higher estimated HOA per square foot can be rational if it replaces external memberships and if wellness services become a daily utility. If you are rarely in town, you may find you are funding a lifestyle you are not present to enjoy.
Fifth, the buyer who wants boutique with walkability. Both concepts sit inside a neighborhood that supports a walkable day-to-day rhythm. The question is whether you want your “third place” inside the building or on the water.
Context: where these projects sit in the Bay Harbor ecosystem
Bay Harbor Islands is not only about what is new; it is also about what is already established. Existing residential options like Bay Harbor Towers offer a different kind of appeal: a more familiar condo experience in a location that remains hard to replicate.
The new wave, by contrast, is narrowing in on identity. Wellness-branded residences and boating-forward boutiques are both responses to the same reality: ultra-premium buyers are no longer satisfied with “waterfront” as a generic descriptor. They want a narrative that maps to how they live.
That narrative is also why the Bay Harbor orbit continues to draw attention beyond its size. In the broader North Dade luxury map, projects such as Onda Bay Harbor have helped cement Bay Harbor as a destination for design-conscious buyers, not simply a convenient address.
Numbers that matter: start prices, residence counts, and the real meaning of HOA
Sophisticated buyers rarely anchor on list price alone. They anchor on the relationship between product and ongoing cost.
The WELL is commonly marketed from about $1.25 million and up, with 54 residences and a large amenity footprint. The HOA/maintenance estimate often cited around $2.00 per square foot points to a service-rich, operations-heavy building. If you are comparing residences across Miami, treat that figure as a signal of lifestyle intensity rather than a line-item shock.
La Maré’s Regency Collection is commonly marketed from about $1.4 million and up, with an HOA/maintenance estimate often cited around $1.20 per square foot. With 33 residences in Regency and nine in Signature, the scale is intimate, and the expense profile may skew toward what you would expect in a boutique waterfront building with resort-style leisure.
In both cases, the buyer’s best move is to request the most current budget assumptions and understand what is included versus optional. Wellness services, programming, and access models can change the effective cost of ownership as much as the HOA number itself.
A discreet verdict
Neither concept is “better.” They are different instruments.
Choose The WELL if you want a home that behaves like a structured wellness environment: amenities designed for repeat use, a brand premise that extends into the residence, and an aesthetic likely calibrated for calm.
Choose La Maré if your version of luxury is defined by the bay itself: terraces, views, entertaining, and the possibility of a private slip that turns a Saturday into a departure time.
Bay Harbor Islands, with its walkable rhythm and rising luxury pricing, is one of the few Miami-area micro-markets where these two lanes can coexist without competing. The neighborhood is the common denominator. The lifestyle is the decision.
FAQs
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Is Bay Harbor Islands considered walkable? Yes. It is often described as relatively walkable for a waterfront Miami neighborhood, with a reported walk score of 81.
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What is the median home price in Bay Harbor Islands? The median is around $1.15 million, with roughly 5.4% year-over-year growth in 2025.
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How many residences are planned at The WELL Bay Harbor Islands? It is planned as 54 residences, positioned as a boutique luxury building.
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What is The WELL’s amenity footprint? It is marketed with more than 22,000 square feet of amenities centered on wellness.
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Who is listed on The WELL’s design team? Arquitectonica is listed for architecture and Meyer Davis for interiors.
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What are The WELL residences marketed to include in-home? Listing materials describe features such as air purification, aromatherapy, and red-light-related elements.
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Where are La Maré’s collections located? The Regency Collection is marketed at 9927 E Bay Harbor Dr and the Signature Collection at 9781 E Bay Harbor Dr.
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How many residences are in La Maré’s Regency and Signature collections? Regency is marketed as 33 residences and Signature as nine residences, both across eight stories.
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Does La Maré offer boat slips? Marketing promotes private boat slips, but availability and assignment can vary by residence and purchase terms.
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How should buyers compare HOA estimates between these projects? Treat them as directional: The WELL is often quoted around $2.00 per sq ft and La Maré around $1.20 per sq ft, subject to final budgets.
When you're ready to tour or underwrite the options, connect with MILLION Luxury.
Million Luxury
Million Luxury
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