Vitamin Shoppe Founder Seeks $90 Million For 3.5-Acre Oceanfront Hamptons Mansion – That Features A 9-Hole Private Golf Course!

Hopefully, I'm not the first person to tell you that you need to take a multivitamin. Personally, I get my multivitamins once a month in the mail from a company called Ritual. Prior to the ease and convenience of Ritual vitamins arriving in my mailbox, I didn't really take a multivitamin. It never really felt important enough to fit into my life.

My dad, on the other hand, makes a monthly pilgrimage to his local Vitamin Shoppe, where he re-supplies around a dozen different supplements that fill TWO plastic pill boxes. Wherever my dad travels, those Vitamin Shoppe pill boxes go with him. I used to laugh at him and tell him that what he was doing was unnecessary and wasteful – that he was literally pissing away his money on all these supplements. But I think more recent scientific research, especially post-COVID, is showing that he has been right all along. He's over 80 years old, was barely impacted by a case of COVID, and, other than an annual cold, never gets sick.

Another older guy whose life has greatly benefited from Vitamin Shoppe is the company's 78-year-old founder, Jeffrey Horowitz.

Jeffrey, a pharmacist by training, founded The Vitamin Shoppe in 1977, opening his first store in New York City at the corner of 57th and Lexington. Funnily enough, today that same location is a GNC.

Sensing that the world is filled with lazy people like me, way back in 1981, The Vitamin Shoppe launched a monthly mail-order catalog. By the end of the 1980s, the company had a dozen stores in New York. By the mid-1990s, the chain had grown to 18 stores, had launched a private label, and was generating $60+ million per year in revenue.

In 1997, Jeffrey sold 70% of his business to a private equity firm, partly to cash out, but also to fuel expansion. That same year, the company launched its first website for e-commerce. By the end of the 1990s, there were 38 stores and $130+ million in revenue.

Around this time, Jeffrey and his wife, Helen, paid $2.7 million for a property in the Hamptons hamlet of Sagaponack. Shortly thereafter, they paid $700,000 for an undeveloped neighboring lot to give them 3.5 total acres.

By the end of 1998, Jeffrey and Helen had completed construction of a 9,000-square-foot mansion on the first lot. But what to do with the vacant lot? An avid golfer, Jeffrey built himself a NINE-HOLE PRIVATE GOLF COURSE. Imagine that. Not only do you own a 9,000-square-foot oceanfront mansion in the Hamptons, but you have a private golf course in your BACKYARD? Who else can say that?

Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal reported that Jeffrey and Helen were listing their Hamptons estate for $89 million. Here's what the property looks like:

And here's what happened to The Vitamin Shoppe…

On December 2, 2002, Bear Stearns acquired 100% of The Vitamin Shoppe for $300 million. Jeffrey's 1997 windfall is not known, but his 30% stake at the 2002 sale translated into an additional $60 million payday. Not bad for a former pharmacist!

A year after the sale, Jeffrey and Helen paid $7.9 million for a 7,000-square-foot condo on Fisher Island in Miami.

After the 2002 sale, Bear Stearns spent the next several years rapidly scaling the business. Under their ownership, Vitamin Shoppe expanded nationwide, added hundreds of new locations, and doubled down on private-label products to improve margins. By 2009, the company was ready to go public.

When The Vitamin Shoppe went public on October 26, 2009, it raised over $150 million and immediately achieved a market capitalization of more than $1 billion. Its stock continued to climb, reaching a peak in February 2013 with a market cap approaching $2 billion.

But the supplement industry was changing. Online-first brands like Ritual, Care/of, and HUM Nutrition began appealing to younger, wellness-savvy consumers with slick branding, subscription models, and personalization—something Vitamin Shoppe struggled to replicate.

Between 2015 and 2019, the company faced increased competition from Amazon, direct-to-consumer startups, and big-box retailers like Costco and Walmart entering the supplement game. Foot traffic declined. Sales slumped. Its stock price, which had once traded above $60 per share, fell below $4.

In August 2019, Vitamin Shoppe agreed to be acquired by Franchise Group, Inc. (the parent company of Liberty Tax and Buddy's Home Furnishings) for $208 million, taking the company private once again. The deal valued the chain at a fraction of its earlier highs.

Since then, the company has attempted a modest comeback. Vitamin Shoppe has refocused on e-commerce, private-label innovation, and in-store wellness experiences like health assessments and personalized consultations. It has also experimented with franchise models and smaller-format locations.

After stepping away from The Vitamin Shoppe, Jeffrey remained active in the supplement world. He joined the executive team at Vitacost.com, another online vitamin retailer, which was later acquired by Kroger in 2014. His knack for spotting early wellness trends clearly didn't fade with time.

And yes—Bear Stearns, the firm that bought Vitamin Shoppe for $300 million in 2002, famously collapsed in 2008 during the financial crisis and was sold to JPMorgan Chase for pennies on the dollar.

Today, Vitamin Shoppe operates roughly 700 stores across the country. While it no longer dominates the supplement space the way it once did, it remains one of the most recognizable names in retail wellness—thanks in large part to a former pharmacist who turned a single Manhattan storefront into a billion-dollar brand… and a nine-hole backyard golf course in the Hamptons.