WeWork’s Adam Neumann Sparks Fury in Florida After Tearing Down Historical Church To Build His Wife’s New School

In a small Florida village, former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann is facing a fresh wave of controversy after his real estate firm purchased and then demolished a historical church to make way for his wife's new private school.

Crews hired by Neumann's company, Flow, began razing the 75-year-old Rader Memorial United Methodist Church in El Portal, FL, earlier this month.

The demolition has left the typically quiet Miami-Dade community of 2,000 residents sharply divided, with some voicing support for the new venture and others decrying it as an assault on the village's historical heritage.

According to property records, Flow purchased the 1952-built church, which has been abandoned since 2007, for $13.72 million nearly a year ago with the intention of building a school called Student of Life, for Life (SOLFL) and a parking lot for staff. 

The church site is only a fraction of Neumann's expanding footprint in El Portal: Last year, his firm took part in a $70 million acquisition of 16 acres of local land at auction.

Founded by Neumann’s wife, Rebekah Neumann, SOLFL bills itself as a holistic Jewish school for grades kindergarten through high school with a focus on spiritual practice and Torah learning, according to information available on its website.   

Once complete, the El Portal campus will include a collection of two-story buildings with thatched roofs designed to house up to 350 students.

"People are up in arms here. Traffic, everything is going to change, and it's a horrible situation for us to be in as citizens," resident Pamela Mills recently told CBS Miami.

The outlet previously reported that at a village planning and zoning meeting held in late January, development stakeholders talked about the need for zoning changes and traffic planning to accommodate the new school. 

El Portal residents later said they thought they would have the opportunity to speak to Flow’s representatives about possibly preserving the church during a town hall meeting scheduled for mid-February, but by then, the demolition had begun. 

"We feel like we've been betrayed. We were negotiating with them in good faith, and now they've turned around and basically stabbed us in the back," resident Greg Stier told the station.

Others, however, have been more receptive to Neumann and company, saying that developers have pledged to create a new park in the village and help revitalize El Portal's lackluster downtown, NBC Miami reported. 

Supporters of SOLFL also argue that if the school project fails, the church land could instead be used for high-density workforce housing under Florida's Live Local Act—a prospect some residents find even less appealing.

Realtor.com® reached out to the developer's attorney, Michael Kosnitzky, and to El Portal Mayor Omarr Nickerson for comment.

Neumann, who has a net worth of $2.3 billion, according to Forbes' ranking, served as WeWork CEO from 2010 to 2019, when he was forced out before the co-working company pulled the plug on a planned IPO.

WeWork did ultimately go public in 2021 but filed for bankruptcy two years later.

Since parting ways with WeWork, Neumann, who walked away with a lucrative "golden parachute" package estimated at over $1.7 billion, developed several branded apartment complexes in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Saudi Arabia, under his real estate company, Flow.

The billionaire investor's personal property portfolio at one time included a sprawling New York City penthouse listed in 2023 for $32 million, homes in New York's Westchester County and the Hamptons, and a lavish 10-acre estate in the San Francisco Bay Area's Marin County with a $27.5 million price tag.