Katie Warren/Business Insider
Fisher Island residents have access to coronavirus tests that aren't yet available to the wider public.
- Fisher Island, a private island off the coast of Miami, is the richest ZIP code in the US, according to Bloomberg.
- The average income on the island is $2.2 million and the median home value is $3 million.
- Everyone on the island, including staff, can get a coronavirus antibody blood test that's not yet available to the wider public, The Miami Herald reported Monday.
- Elena Bluntzer, a real-estate agent and resident of Fisher Island, told Business Insider that she's already taken the blood test at the island's health clinic. "It's just a finger prick," she said.
- Fisher Island's glitzy amenities, including a beach club, a spa, and private beaches with sand imported from the Bahamas, are currently closed to residents.
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Fisher Island, a members-only island off the coast of Miami, is the richest ZIP code in the US, according to Bloomberg. The average income of the island's residents is a whopping $2.2 million.
Like communities across the world, the 800 families who call Fisher Island home are sheltering in place, albeit in multimillion-dollar condos that have a median value of $3 million.
But unlike most of the US, Fisher Island's residents - as well as the 400-person workforce that runs the island - have access to coronavirus antibody blood tests that aren't yet available to the wider public, The Miami Herald reported Monday.
It's one of several wealthy enclaves in the US, such as the ski resort town of Telluride, Colorado, that has procured tests for its affluent residents while many everyday Americans have trouble getting tested for the virus even if they're showing symptoms.
Elena Bluntzer, a Fisher Island resident and owner of Bluntzer Group Real Estate, told Business Insider that residents have been sheltering in their homes and taking all precautions seriously.
"Everybody here is very aware that this is a very serious pandemic and nobody lives in a bubble," Bluntzer said. "It's not any different here than it is anywhere else."
According to the Miami Herald, Fisher Island bought thousands of rapid blood test kits from the University of Miami Health System (UHealth) to test each of the island's 800 families and 400 staff members for coronavirus. The finger-prick blood test, which takes 15 minutes and can determine whether or not someone has already had the coronavirus, is not yet widely available. The testing is available at the island's onsite UHealth Clinic.
Bluntzer told Business Insider she already got tested at the clinic.
"It's just a finger prick," she said. "You go and make an appointment along with everybody else and it's set up in such a way that there is a lot of social distancing."
"It's extremely well set up," she said, adding that no one she knew of had had a test come back positive. The island has between five and nine confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to the Herald.
Sheltering in multimillion-dollar condos
Life on Fisher Island, already a secluded community only accessible by ferry or private boat, has become even quieter than usual.
Most of the island's amenities, which include a beach club, multiple restaurants, a golf course, two deep-water marinas, a spa, and 18 tennis courts, have closed to residents. Even the beaches, where the pristinely white sand is imported from the Bahamas, are currently off-limits.
Masks and gloves are required to enter any public area that's still open, such as the island's post office, according to Bluntzer.
Fisher Island is home to nearly 30 luxury condominium buildings, where residences sell from $2 million to upwards of $40 million. But only about 30% of those who own homes on the island are year-round residents, Dora Puig, the top-ranked real estate broker in Miami-Dade County by sales volume in 2018, told Business Insider last year.
Katie Warren/Business Insider
The Beach Club on Fisher Island.
Residents of the island include real-estate developers, high-power litigation attorneys, CEOs, people in the finance industry, and some who are simply "old money," Puig said.
Bluntzer said it's difficult to tell how many of Fisher Island's residents are on the island right now because everyone is sheltering in their homes. And, she noted, people on Fisher Island are leaving their homes for the same, limited number of reasons as people elsewhere, "which is [to] order food from one of the restaurants or the market, and you pick it up, you take it home, and you go back to sheltering in place."
Five of Fisher Island's restaurants or open for pickup or delivery, and residents can also pick up staples and prepared foods at the Island Market, Bluntzer said.
At the Beach Club, lunch and dinner are available for pickup, offering menu items such as rock shrimp fried rice for $26, rotisserie lemon-paprika chicken for $31, and Sakyo roasted sea bass for $34. At upscale Italian restaurant Porto Cervo, residents can pick up pasta dishes such as rigatoni alla Norma for $39 and veal ragu for $38, or a marinated king salmon for $40.
Bluntzer said she hasn't noticed any shortages of essentials like toilet paper or flour.
A uptick in rental inquiries
Following a pattern of affluent families and individuals waiting out the pandemic in secluded communities, Fisher Island saw a surge in rental inquiries before Miami's shelter-in-place order went into effect on March 24, according to Bluntzer.
Katie Warren/Business Insider
Fisher Island is home to almost 30 luxury condominium buildings.
"We had inquiries and some people did want to come and rent here, but Fisher Island closed the doors right away because they just found that it was the best way to keep the community safe," Bluntzer said.
Current rentals on the island start at $6,600 per month and go up to $60,000 per month.
Sales have also slowed to a halt on the island as homes can only be shown virtually. Bluntzer said she has two pending sales, but only because they went into contract before the coronavirus hit. Now, the only people arriving to the island are a few residents who might have been out of town when the shelter-in-place order took effect, Bluntzer said.
"But there's been very little of that because nobody's really leaving their homes," she said. "If they have homes outside of Miami, outside of Fisher Island, and they were there, they've been staying there, as far as I know."
Do you live on Fisher Island and have a coronavirus-related story to share? Email this reporter at kwarren@businessinsider.com.
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