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Terry Taylor is the nation's largest private owner of automotive dealerships
Terry Taylor doesn't care if you know about him. He prefers it that way.
Taylor can’t escape notice entirely. In 1996, he married 1993’s Miss Florida USA, Daytona’s Cynthia Elise Redding. It was his third marriage, according to public records. Another publicity blip came when he took to buying and flipping super-yachts, which led to coverage in 2007 in the Wall Street Journal, even though he wouldn’t be interviewed about his five yacht purchases and sales. A database of super-yacht ownership says he currently owns the 198-foot Mia Elise II, a seven-cabin yacht worth $50 million that was built for a Russian businessman. The same database says he owns a $35-million Gulfstream jet.
In 2009, he and Cynthia, then living on South Ocean in Manalapan, the barrier island community of the super-rich south of better-known Palm Beach, sued the owner of a parcel adjoining their oceanfront estate over a “mountain of dirt” that accumulated there as part of construction. The Taylors, parents of two, relocated to Palm Beach itself to Addison Mizner’s Casa Nana, an oceanview estate with 16,269 square feet of air-conditioned space, Venetian loggias and a 16th-century fireplace the King of France commissioned for his mistress. They paid $22.2 million to Home Shopping Network founder Lowell “Bud” Paxson for Casa Nana.
In 2010, the couple won permission from the Town of Palm Beach to close its main oceanfront road for a few days so they could build a private pedestrian tunnel to the beach. The annual property tax bill for the estate alone is $454,000.
In Aspen, Colo., they bought a home valued at $13.7 million by the local government appraiser. In 2017, Taylor bought the $25-million penthouse at the Porsche Design Tower, a Sunny Isles Beach development where he acquired not only the five-bedroom unit with two outdoor kitchens but also a sky garage with private elevators that hoist vehicles to his unit.
The Taylors and his local dealerships are philanthropic. He and Cynthia were inducted into the Boys & Girls Club of Broward County’s Admirals Club for those who donate $50,000 a year, and to the Dream Makers Society for million-dollar donors. The few times Taylor has been photographed have come at club events such as its yacht-rendezvous fundraiser. The research laboratories at the University of Miami’s Schiff Center for Liver Diseases are named for Taylor and Cynthia, who died at their Aspen home late last year after an illness. She was 44.
Taylor’s M.O.
In some ways, Taylor’s approach to his dealerships is conventional. He believes in high-quality facilities and service and, as a Nissan executive told Automotive News, Taylor’s dealership employees are “top-notch.” When he buys a dealership, Taylor retains ownership of the real estate. If the dealership is well run, Taylor typically makes its general manager his minority partner in the business — with a 20% to 25% stake that he finances.
Taylor brings in revenue two ways: From his share of the dealership, and from the service charges and rent the dealerships pay him and his other companies in West Palm Beach. He wants the dealerships to feel locally owned but generally doesn’t let anyone’s name go over the door.
General managers get autonomy but must keep him informed. Taylor, who carries current financials in his briefcase, “knows what every store is doing every day,” Sabates says. “Terry might be one of the smartest people I ever met when it comes to numbers. He’s got a memory like a frickin’ elephant.” Sabates tells the story of discussing plans to renovate a dealership building with Taylor, with Taylor instantly recalling exactly how many doors the building had.
On two occasions, Taylor has wound up in court with his minority partners, cases that shed some light on his deal structure.
In one case, involving a Ford Lincoln dealership Taylor owned in Cookeville, Tenn., the dealership’s former general manager, Michael Petrello, says he turned the operation from a moneyloser to profitability and from 70 sales a month to 220. Taylor lent him $980,614 in 2014 to buy a 20% stake in the dealership, then later sacked him — Taylor says for performance, Petrello says after a fight about employee pay.
