country's most expensive neighborhoods.

This is Fisher Island.

Mel Brooks, Julia Roberts, and Oprah

have all owned homes here.

With an average income of $2.2 million,

it's the richest zip code in the United States.

And we got a chance to tour it.

You may have heard of Fisher from reports

that all the residents and staff

got COVID-19 antibody tests,

just three miles from Miami, where testing was rare.

Yep, that's where we're headed.

You actually have to take a ferry there.

It's one of the only ways

to get on the island.

The other way to get on the island? Private yacht.

Only the island's 800 families and their guests

are allowed on Fisher.

So security is pretty tight at the ferry terminal,

but we got special access back in November 2019

thanks to Dora Puig,

one of the island's real-estate agents.

Dora Puig: Fisher Island is a private island enclave

with 216 acres.

Abby: Dora invited us to tour

Fisher's newest developments,

Palazzo del Sol and Palazzo

della Luna, opened in 2019,

which is how we ended up on the island's newest ferry,

taking the seven-minute journey from Miami Beach.

So, right now I'm on the ferry over to Fisher Island,

and, as you can see, I'm the only one here

in the passenger lounge.

Most everyone is in their cars.

We've got a Bentley, a Lamborghini,

a Porsche, Ferrari, I think.

You won't see these zooming around the island, though.

To enforce strict speed limits,

most people drive around in golf carts.

Dora: When you go to the beach club,

you'll have a mini Rolls-Royce golf cart

or you'll have a Range Rover golf cart,

or I've seen even vintage old American cars in baby blue.

Abby: The median waterfront

home here costs $2.9 million,

but residents are not only splurging

on million-dollar apartments.

They're also paying a

hefty membership fee.

That covers unlimited use

of the community pools,

the 17 tennis courts, and the private beaches

with sand imported from the Bahamas.

But it doesn't include the golf course or the two marinas.

Dora: The original idea of Fisher Island

was for everyone to live in the community

and use the community amenities.

Abby: But even on a private island,

some residents want even more exclusive perks.

The newest condos, Palazzo del Sol and della Luna,

don't have beachfront locations,

but they do have a private gym, salon, theater, and pool

and water transport that only condo residents can use.

Dora: Come step in with me.

Abby: Dora first showed us a $14.5 million unit

in Palazzo della Luna.

She says many of the island's current residents

have been looking to trade up for a home like this one

so they don't have to share amenities

with the whole community.

This unit has four

bedrooms and five baths.

Dora: You walk in, you're at ground level,

just like in a single-family home.

You have your private pool, you're on the bay,

and look at the size of the outdoor entertaining terraces.

It wraps around the whole corner of the residence.

You could have a dinner for 200 to 300 people here.

Abby: The selling point:

the disappearing master suite.

Dora: You walk into a dressing room

that looks like an Hermès shop.

Walk-in dressing room for the lady

and white-lacquered Italian closets.

The custom bathroom by Boffi for us,

with the floating island in white lacquer.

The tub is custom made for us,

and it's called the Fisher Island.

And then enter into the master suite,

with your 12-foot ceilings.

Abby: Because we were curious,

we went to check out a second apartment,

a supposedly more affordable

unit up a couple floors.

At $9 million, it's got three bedrooms

and three and a half bathrooms.

Dora: Here you're walking into the wooded parlor

with our little mini-library, all in blond oak.

You have the main living room, dining room,

kitchen areas to the bay,

and the master suite is also to the bay.

And then you have the two guest suites

on the golf-course side.

Abby: You can keep all the furniture

for an extra $2 million.

Dora: Look at how beautiful it is.

Abby: These two new developments

have only made Fisher more untouchable,

pushing home values across the island up by 20%.

Today, you'll find price tags

of over $40 million for a condo.

That's only $10 million short

of the most expensive home ever sold in Miami.

And that was an entire mansion.

The Palazzos were the first developments

on Fisher in nearly a decade

and are targeting a new generation of buyers.

Dora: Traditionally, we had a little bit older demographic

because the island is so beautiful and it's expensive.

We've really seen it switch to a much younger crowd.

So we've seen a nice migration towards younger families.

Some come from generations of family wealth;

others come from selling oil companies,

selling financial instruments, technology, hedge funds.

Abby: Even still, half of the residents are over 60,

making them particularly vulnerable for COVID-19.

The island has always been a place for the 1% to get away,

ever since it was formed in 1906,

when a canal was dredged so boats could go

from the Port of Miami straight to the ocean.

Dora: The interesting part about this is that

Fisher Island today would have been

south of Fifth Street in Miami Beach,

because it was actually connected

to the tip of Miami Beach peninsula.

Abby: Miami's first Black billionaire,

real-estate mogul Dana Dorsey,

was one of the first

owners of the new island.

He wanted to build a Black resort here,

but he had trouble getting workers

out to the island to build it.

So he sold it to billionaire developer

Carl Fisher, who named it after himself.

Next up, the Vanderbilt family.

Dora: Carl Fisher and

William Vanderbilt were known

to party and have a lot of fun here.

And one very late night,

I'm sure there were drinks involved,

they traded the island.

Carl Fisher traded his

island with his winter home,

which is today the club,

to William Vanderbilt for

his over-200-foot yacht.

So, they did the trade,

and then the Alva later on sunk

and William Vanderbilt kept the island.

So I think he was the better businessman.

Abby: After Vanderbilt's death,

the island passed hands between millionaires.

And then it was left vacant for 15 years.

In the 1980s, Fisher's current developers

started work on the community you see today.

And now Fisher is a full-blown town.

The old Vanderbilt mansion is a hotel

with suites running for

almost $1,500 a night.

Vanderbilt's old airplane hangar is now a spa,

and you can even rent a property here on Airbnb

for about $700 a night.

But this doesn't happen in a vacuum.

It takes about 600 workers to run this island.

They live off-island and have three separate ferries.

During the day, they staff a school, post office,

fire station, a security force,

and a medical center.

It was from that private health clinic

that residents and workers got those

infamous antibody tests.

We're back on the ferry.

We just finished our tour of Fisher Island.

It's really hard to wrap your brain around

just the amount of wealth squished into one place.

How that exists so close to reality across the bay.

As visitors pre-COVID, we got the sense that

even with all its normal town functions,

Fisher Island is anything but normal.

It's like a live-in resort community.

Manicured, eerily perfect, and as secluded as ever.

Hey, guys, my name's Abby.

I'm the producer on this video.

Obviously, things have changed a lot for Fisher

since we visited back in November 2019.

But I honestly wasn't that surprised

when I heard that they were able to get antibody tests

for everyone on the island.

Not only did they have one of the first cases of COVID-19

in Miami-Dade County,

they also have the means, the wealth to get them.

But I wanna know what else you wanna see from us.

What other luxury

apartments, private enclaves

do you want us to explore?

Let us know in the comments below,

and make sure to subscribe.