Compared to Buckingham Palace, valued at $1.6 billion, and the most expensive home in the United States, known as “The One” in Bel Air, Los Angeles, valued at $123,833,152 million, Sarasota-Manatee's luxury home market remains modest, despite the most expensive home to date recently coming up for sale at $25 million.
To compile this list of the area's most expensive homes, we used local property appraiser's records to find the 10 most highly valued homes in the area in 2022. (All 10 are in Sarasota County. The most expensive home in Manatee County is on Longboat Key, assessed at about $12.5 million.) Given all the new wealth and tons of new luxury construction flowing into the area, what surprised us is how stable the top 10 list has been compared to when we last updated this list in 2019. Seven of the 10 homes from three years ago are still ranked in the top 10 and are owned by the same people.
It's clear what the featured homes have in common: prime waterfront locations, privacy and lots of square footage. Meet the top 10 homes and their owners.
1st place: $22,102,500
1420 Bay Point Drive, Sarasota
Owner: Katherine Ebbeson
2021 Value: $15,135,200
Former Congresswoman and Florida Secretary of State Katherine Ebbeson (née Harris) built her 16,016-square-foot Gulf Coast home in popular Bay Point Park in 2012. The architecture is Beaux-Arts and modeled on Paris' Hôtel Biron, built in 1730. The home has six bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a pool, a boathouse, and a dock. Though now retired from politics (Ebbeson authorized Florida's controversial recount in the 2000 presidential election), Ebbeson is the granddaughter of citrus and livestock magnate Ben Hill Griffin, for whom the University of Florida's football stadium is named. In 2017, she married Texas banker Richard Ware.
2nd Place: $21,463,400
2309 Casey Key Road, Nokomis
Owner: Ping Faulhaber
2021 Value: $17,094,600
The late Fritz Faulhaber and his wife, an engineer named Ping, moved their family from Clearwater, where the Faulhaber Group is headquartered, to Casey Key because they loved Sarasota's friendliness and Pine View's education. The couple purchased the Gulf Coast property in 1998 for just over $2 million and built a 19,674-square-foot Spanish-style home in 2007, later creating the award-winning 1.2-acre Pagoda Gardens. The Faulhabers also founded the Suncoast Science Center/Faulb Lab in Sarasota to inspire young people to pursue science careers. Ping is executive director and was elected last year to a three-year, four-month term on the board of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
3rd Place: $21,281,600
132 N. Washington Drive, Sarasota
Owners: Jeffrey and Mary Penny Vinick
2021 Value: $15,382,000
Hedge fund legend and Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeffrey Vinik and his wife Mary Penny own this eye-popping megamansion on St. Armands Key. It's one of the largest in Sarasota, reportedly nicknamed the SS Magellan by neighbors for its cruise ship size and the $500 billion Magellan Fund Vinik ran in the '90s. Vinik bought two existing homes, demolished them, and built a 24,040-square-foot (16,245-square-foot indoor) all-white, ultra-modern complex. The home has eight bedrooms, eight full bathrooms, five half bathrooms, and a pool overlooking Sarasota Bay with views of the Ringling Bridge. Vinik is also developing the $3 billion mixed-use Water Street Tampa project, according to the Tampa Bay Times, and has invested in ventures ranging from skin care to radiation protection suits for soldiers to video game headsets.
4th place: $20,964,300
1253 Hillview Drive, Sarasota
Owners: Bridgeview Land Trust, David and Lisa Grein
2021 Value: $16,211,300
Investment executive David Grein and his wife, Dr. Lisa Butler Grein, own the property in Harbor Acres, one of the city's hottest neighborhoods. Grein was a Wall Street investment banker and then a telecommunications executive before founding his own investment firm, Grein Management. Formerly owned by Jane Bancroft Cook, a billionaire Dow Jones heiress and New College of Florida backer, the home was bequeathed to New College and sold at auction for $3.9 million. The property had been vacant for years, and the Greins purchased it in 2006 for $6.5 million. In 2018, they built a 28,182-square-foot, four-bedroom mansion. Appointed to leadership positions on numerous state and federal councils, including an appointment by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Council, David Grein is also the founder of a college prep program that has assisted hundreds of local African-American and Hispanic students with the SAT, college trips and remedial tutoring programs.
5th place: $20,318,800
2209 Casey Key Road, Nokomis
Owners: Walter and Marilyn Kreiser
2021 Value: $16,322,700
Inventor and plastics magnate Walter Kreizeder and his wife Marilyn own a Mediterranean-style mansion on Casey Key. Walter, who holds numerous patents, is the former owner of Courtesy, an Illinois injection molding manufacturer. Purchased in 1999 for nearly $4 million, the original home was demolished to make way for a 14,898-square-foot house designed by Sarasota School's Ralph Twitchell, with four bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a beach cabana and a boat dock. During construction, rumors circulated that it was to become Oprah's new home. This rumor attracted unwanted attention and would-be paparazzi to stop by, until someone put up a hand-painted sign reading, “Not Oprah's.” Contractor Michael Walker, president of Sarasota-based Michael K. Walker Associates, which oversaw the project, said he doesn't know how the word spread, but the elongated “O” cut-out shape in the privacy wall may have been what caused tour buses to stop and stare.
6th place: $19,831,800
845 Longboat Club Road, Longboat Key
Owners: 845 LBCR Land Trust, James and Laura Rogers
2021 Value: $14,406,500
Serenissima, which means “Most Serene” in Italian, made headlines in 2017 when it listed for sale for $26.5 million, making it the most expensive single-family home in Sarasota history. It then dropped in price to nearly $19.8 million when it sold, and finally sold in 2020 for $16.5 million, tying it with a home on Casey Key as the most expensive home sold in Sarasota County. The home is a grand Venetian-style mansion in the Regent Court neighborhood of the Longboat Key Club, with nearly 20,000 square feet of living space, including six bedrooms, six full and two half bathrooms, and a spacious outdoor terrace with water views. It features numerous custom details, including a gold-painted birdcage elevator and a hand-painted mural on the dining room ceiling.
The address is home to the James and Laura Rogers Foundation, a nonprofit that donates to arts and youth development nonprofits in Tennessee. The Rogers founded the foundation in 2011. “They're very kind, down-to-earth people,” says Compass founding agent Rich Polese, who represented the Rogers in the transaction. “They wanted to look at real estate in Florida and came to the West Coast after looking at the East Coast and not being impressed. I met them when they first came to Longboat, and they absolutely loved it here.”
7th place: $19,809,700
4449 Bayshore Road, Sarasota
Owners: James and Mary Ann Armour
2021 Value: $15,358,900
Overlooking Sarasota Bay, this enormous 21,192-square-foot Parisian-style home belongs to James and Mary Ann Armour, former CEO and chairman of AM General LLC, a defense contractor in South Bend, Indiana, that makes Humvee and Hummer SUVs. The Armours bought the unfinished home from investor Howard Jacobs in 2008 for $19 million. After years of controversy and litigation over defects in the existing home, the Armours eventually invested $14 million in renovations. The three-story Beaux-Arts home has 10 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, and a pool. The Armours are supporters of the Sarasota Art Association and Selby Gardens.
8th place: $17,997,400
857 Longboat Club Road, Longboat Key
Owners: Pleasant Real Estate LLC, Clayton Lee and MaryAnn Mathile
2021 Value: $12,587,400
Built in 2008, the 15,954-square-foot home has six bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, and a pool. It was purchased in 2000 by Clayton Lee Matill and his wife Mary Ann, who sold the property to Pleasant Real Estate in 2003. The Ohio native left his job as an accountant for Campbell Soup Company before buying the pet food company Iams in 1982, building it into a conglomerate that he sold to Procter & Gamble in 1999 for $2.3 billion, earning him a place on the Forbes billionaires list. Matill also has a Wikipedia page. A notable philanthropist, Mary Ann received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from St. Mary's College in 2006, and donated $9 million to the college with her husband in 2011. Founded in 1989, the Matill Family Foundation has donated more than $230 million in grants to nonprofit organizations that support children and families. Clayton Matill also founded Aileron, a nonprofit that helps businesses thrive, and writes self-help books focused on how to be highly successful in business.
9th place: $16,590,200
3332 Gulfmead Drive, Siesta Key
Owner: Gulfmead Land Trust
2021 Value: $3,074,700
Little information is available about who lives in the home, which was built last year after the mysterious owner demolished a 1970s home that previously stood on the property. Located on just under an acre of waterfront land on the northernmost tip of Siesta Key, the home has two buildings totaling about 10,000 square feet of living area and backs onto Bayou Louise and Big Pass.
The perfect location comes with a slice of history: It was once the site of Harry Heigel's Higelhurst Hotel. Heigel moved to Sarasota in the 1880s, got involved in politics (he was elected mayor three times and served four terms as city councilman), fought for Sarasota to be incorporated as a town, and transformed the hard-to-access backcountry into a resort for wealthy snowbirds. The Higelhurst was two stories high, lined with columns and had a large screened-in porch on the second floor. When it opened in 1915, Heigel shuttled 200 celebratory guests by boat to the mainland.
Within two years, however, the hotel burned down, and on January 7, 1921, Higel's body was found on north Siesta Key. His head and face had been so badly beaten that it was unrecognizable. Doctors cleaned his wounds and provided what care they could, but the 53-year-old Higel never recovered. Fellow Siesta Key resident Rube Allyn, former editor of the Sarasota Sun and publisher of the Florida Fisherman, was arrested for the crime and taken to the Bladentown Jail for his own safety (historian Carl Grismer has written that he might have been lynched otherwise). A grand jury found insufficient evidence to bring him to trial, and he was released after 61 days. A $1,000 bounty was offered, but the perpetrator was never identified.
10th place: $16,339,800
6910 Point of Rocks Road, Sarasota
Owners: Gary and Elizabeth Kompothecras
2021 value: $12,879,100
Gary and Elizabeth Kompothecras bought the Siesta Key property for $2.3 million in 2003 and built the 13,562-square-foot house by 2010. Gary, a former chiropractor and founder of the 1-800-ASK-GARY referral service, said it took seven years because “there were a lot of change orders and we were waiting on materials like imported silk and limestone.” With seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms, the house has a sauna, hot tub, bowling alley, steam room, wine cellar, theater, and access to a private beach. The multi-story, columned mansion was modeled after William Vanderbilt's Marble House in Newport, Rhode Island, designed in 1892 by architect Richard Morris Hunt. That home reflected the tastes of Vanderbilt's wife Alma, who was educated in France and developed a love of French art and culture. In fact, it was this mansion that launched the Beaux Arts style craze in Newport.
Locally, the Kompothecras home is one of the most famous in town, thanks to its starring role in the MTV reality show “Siesta Key,” which originally followed the couple's son, Alex, and his pals. “We get a lot of people coming by wanting to tour it,” Gary says. The house is in the middle of a renovation that began a year and a half ago and is costing the couple roughly $5 million to $6 million, and should be complete in about six months. Already, they've installed a torch out front, “like Mount Olympus,” Gary says.
Original article from Sarasota Magazine