Jeff Bezos' new mansion, the billionaire's island fortress near Miami, has a deep history - quite literally

Exactly one hundred years ago, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced he was moving to an exclusive island near Miami.

At the same time, there was a real land frenzy going on in Florida during the Scolding 20s era. The father of Miami is said to be Henry Flagler, who was born in New York and co-founded Standard Oil. In 1896, Flagler completed the Florida East Coast Railway, which opened southeast Florida to tourists for the first time.

After the outbreak of World War I.

Many wealthy Americans who were used to vacationing on the French Riviera began to frequent the resort towns of Miami and Palm Beach, creating the American Riviera.

During this boom, developers began building islands in Biscayne Bay and connecting them with a series of bridges called the Venetian Spit. Historian Seth Bramson, author of "33154: A History of Bal Harbor, Bay Harbor Islands, Indian Creek Village and Surfside," points out that work also began north of the Venice Spit by the Shoreland Co. construction company to build one of the largest man-made islands out of mangrove swamps, by then temporarily named Miami Shores Island.

"They thought they could make money on a vacation island they would call Miami Shores Island," said Bramson, a University of Miami professor. "There would be tennis courts, golf, entertainment that people would pay for, and it would be profitable. "

One year after the project began, however, the terrible Miami Hurricane of 1926 drove the Shoreland Co.

Despite the Great Depression

Some wealthy Americans built mansions near the club, Bramson says.

In 1939, islanders heard that the town of Surfside was discussing the possibility of annexing the island at council. This prompted islanders to take advantage of a now-defunct state law that allowed any group of 25 or more relatively contiguous residents to form a municipality. It was thus that on May 19, 1939, the island was declared a municipality with the name Indian Village Creek.

The municipality, home to about 85 people, now functions through a mayoral form of government and has its own police department.

"It's a beautiful place, the houses, the public streets, everything is perfectly preserved. It's exactly the kind of place I wanted to create," says Bramson, who has visited the island a couple of times. His late wife, a baker by trade, had clients on the island.

Bezos owns two homes on the island.

One he bought in October for $79 million and a neighboring estate for $68 million, according to Bloomberg News.

The so-called "Bunker of the Rich" is also home to celebrities such as NFL legend Tom Brady, singer Julio Iglesias, investor Carl Icahn, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

The private, high-end residential neighborhood includes 41 plots of land with access to the water (which are owned by 36 property owners with 29 mansions as of December 31, 2017), according to the municipality's official website.

"It attracts people who want complete privacy because even the road leading to the island is completely gated," said Lourdes Alatreste, a Miamireal estate agent specializing in luxury properties.