The home on North Park Avenue in Winter Park needed a lot of work. Instead of renovating, the owners tore it down and put the land up for sale. The 1.94-acre lot on Lake Maitland sold earlier this month for $6.85 million, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.

“We listed it originally at $10.8 million but the problem it was a big home, 20,000-square-foot under air and 25,500 under roof, but sadly, it had no value,” said listing agent Brian Mitnik of Re/Max 200 Realty. “Everybody that looked at it felt it should be torn down. So we tore the house down and at that point got a tremendous amount of interest.”

Mitnki said he believed it was the highest-priced residential lot ever sold in Winter Park. “A lot of people told me I would never get more than five and a half million dollars for it,” he said.

The property was the family home of homebuilder Charlie Clayton’s parents, Joan and Charles Clayton. She died in 2021, and her estate just sold the home.

In 1978, the elder Clayton purchased the original home for $180,000. That structure dated back to 1938. 

The family added to the house in 1999, giving it a total of eight bedrooms, nine full bathrooms, five half baths, three kitchens, two garages, huge closets, and more. 

“If you look at the pictures, the house from the outside was beautiful, but it was so expensive to renovate, three to four million, and for just another million or two, you could build a new home,” Mitnick said. 

Public records show Charlie Clayton submitted the demolition permit application on May 8 and the city approved it on July 17. 

The home had some historic stained glass windows, chandeliers, and other items inside.

“Anything that had any kind of value like that was pulled out of that house prior [to demolition,]” Mitnick said. “I don’t know where all of it went, but [Clayton] was very sensitive to saving anything in there that had any kind of value.”

According to public records, the buyers are Mark and Chloe Daley, and as of now, no other permits have been filed for possible construction on the property. Because the lot is on the Winter Park Chain of Lakes, any new permits must be approved by the planning commission.

Michael Rasmussen with Daven Real Estate represented the buyers, who Mitnick says bought a lot in a great location. 

“It’s nearly two acres on the most sought-after lake, on Park Avenue, and in walking distance to Park Avenue shops,” Mitnick said.

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Public records show former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III and his wife, Grete Griffin, sold their home to a Texas-based LLC for $4.25 million, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.

“They wanted to be somewhere that was family oriented and peaceful. This made sense to them and they loved it here,” said listing agent Penny Stokes-Hilton with Top Villas Realty, who has worked with the family before. “His career is taking him in a different direction and it’s time to move.”

The Griffins designed the 7,646-square-foot home on Pendio Drive and finished it in 2020.

The builders “worked closely with the family and designed it in a really great way with an open plan concept and high ceilings,” Stokes-Hilton told GrowthSpotter, adding the views of Lake Apopka are different than many others in the area.

“It’s literally like a house on the ocean rather than a lake. You don’t see the other side of the lake so it’s like you’re on the ocean,” she said. “From all of the huge windows and the glass walkway upstairs, you’re just looking straight out at like an ocean view. It’s magnificent.”

The home sits on 1.53 acres and has five bedrooms and five full bathrooms, including a first-floor main suite with a unique feature.

“It’s a two-story dressing room. I had never seen [one like this] before and it is just beautiful,” Stokes-Hilton said. “You go in and you have a whole area and a side staircase where you go up and have glass upstairs that can look over and down into the dressing room below.”

The area includes a chandelier and a large storage space for shoes, above which Griffin III kept his trophies including the Heisman trophy he won in 2011 for being the best player in college football while at Baylor.

Griffin III, known as RG3, was drafted by the then-Washington Redskins, now Washington Commanders, as the second overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. After playing for several years for three teams, he began a broadcasting career with ESPN in 2021.

Grete Griffin is a track athlete, competing in the heptathlon for her native Estonia and for Florida State University.

The home has a basketball court, gym, and sauna.

“They both work out every single day and they work out together and the children get involved. They’re just such an athletic family and they just love their sports.”

The two were married in 2018 and have three daughters together. Robert Griffin III also has a daughter from a previous marriage.

Griffin’s RG3 logo appears throughout the house, etched in glass, painted on the basketball court and tiled in the swimming pool.

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The home is the 25,319-square-foot estate of former Orlando City soccer club owner Flavio Augusto da Silva and his wife, Luciana, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.

Da Silva bought the soccer team to Orlando in 2014 and financed the construction of Exploria Stadium. He sold the team and stadium in May 2021 to the Wilf family, owner of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.

According to public records, da Silva is the signatory agent for the seller, DSF Real Estate, a Cayman Islands company.

The buyer is SOZO Real Estate, a Florida corporation created in September 2022 with a principal address in Miami. The president of the corporation is listed as Henrique M. Vorcaro, who has a real estate background in Brazil.

Monica Lochmandy of Isleworth Realty closed the sale on Blanche Cove Drive in the Isleworth Isleworth Golf & Country Club. The Buyers were represented by Jennifer Olmeda with WRA Real Estate Solutions.

“Estates of this magnitude are a rarity in Central Florida,” Lochmandy said. “Our relationships in the market were an essential key not only in initiating the transaction but also in walking it through to fruition.”

The 25,300-square-foot house sits on 3.2 acres on the north shore of Lake Blanche. Built for entertaining, it features a large pool, fire pit and soccer pitch. There’s also a separate spa building just off the pool.

The da Silvas bought the land for $2.6 million in March 2015 and began building the home using designer Nasrallah Architectural Group Inc and Akers Custom Homes.

“As with all lakefront homes in Isleworth, they are all very special and unique,” said Mark Nasrallah, CEO of Nasrallah Architectural Group Inc. “We call these century homes and that means they’ll be there 100 years from now. We wanted to create something that would serve the family for generations to come.”

The approach is impressive with a multipart driveway surrounding a cross-shaped pool with multiple fountains. The interior contains a lot of wood and glass, including a glass, metal, and stone staircase with colorful accent lighting.

It took four years to build and includes six bedrooms and 9.5 bathrooms, including a main floor primary suite.

There are multiple kitchens with lots of space for entertaining, including a lower-level area with a bowling alley, basketball court, card room, plush theater room, video arcade, and a huge infinity pool and spa building.

When asked about the record-setting price, Nasrallah said it was the first time a property has sold for what it is actually worth.

“Usually, when you deal with these types of homes, you may spend $20 million building it, but then it sells for $12 million,” he said.

The sale more than doubled the previous Orlando record of $15.3 million in May 2022 for a mansion on Lake Butler.

“For Central Florida standards, that [$32 million number] is huge,” said Brian Teach with Coldwell Banker Realty, who also works in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale markets. “… but it does show you that buyers have confidence investing that type of money in our area. I think Orlando has a lot of room to grow.”

GrowthSpotter editor Laura Kinsler contributed to this report. To read more about this sale and other stories about development in Central Florida, go to GrowthSpotter.com and subscribe.

The riverfront estate on River Bend Court in The Springs neighborhood of Longwood was once the home of the late philanthropist Harriett Lake and her husband, Hymen, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.

“They would entertain frequently at the home with big dinner parties and extravagant events. The pool area can probably hold 200 people as well as a huge dining room,” said Scott Taylor, who along with Dawn Evans represented the buyers. Both are with Florida Premier Realty Group, Inc. “As I walked through the house, you could just tell that there’s definitely history there with Orlando folks and I think it’s a landmark property.”

Hymen Lake was a developer and builder who completed this 5,282-square-foot home for himself and his family in 1986. He passed away in 2010.

“The house was pretty much ahead of its time. Back in the mid-1980s, 12, 14, or 16-foot ceilings for a one-story house was pretty much unheard of,” Taylor told GrowthSpotter, adding the house also has high-end finishes and quality construction.

The Lakes were active in many arts groups in Central Florida and around the country, with several arts entities named after them and others, like the Harriett Theatre at Mad Cow Theatre in downtown Orlando and Harriett’s Bar at the Lowndes Shakespeare Center are named for her.

Harriett Lake passed away in July 2018 at age 96.

She was known for her fashion, especially distinctive hats, which created the need for the 512-square-foot complete with mechanized racks.

“I think its square footage and proportions are as big as a garage. It’s massive and the motorized rack has two levels,” Taylor explained. “I’m sure that was all full at some point with all of Mrs. Lake’s belongings, clothing, hats, shoes, and all kinds of things.”

Her obituary said Harriett Lake once raised $40,000 for the trauma center at Orlando Regional Medical Center by selling her clothes at a “Harriett’s Closet” sale in 2015.

The buyers, Steven and Dawn Ruoff, loved the closet and the rest of the four-bedroom home. Taylor said they plan to live in it full-time.

“The day it was listed, the buyers came that day and we secured the house the next day,” Taylor said, adding the list price was $995,000 but the buyers thought they would go in at an even $1 million.

Taylor said the 2.54 acres along the Little Wekiva River give the home beautiful views and peacefulness.

“[I was] just amazed at how beautiful the park-like setting is. There are sculptures from different artists. It’s just so private and serene,” he said. “[The buyers] loved the location. That was probably the biggest key in their decision making to go ahead and buy the house.”

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“[The buyer] actually made an offer on this house before he came to see it, so the offer was sight unseen,” said listing agent Karan Wienker with Florida Golf and Beaches. “He had such a feeling about the home and then when he came to see it, he was not disappointed. The important thing to him was the feeling of the home, the vibe, and he got it. This home has an energy behind it.”

The 11,565-square-foot home sits on almost 13 acres on Lake Mabel just south of Windermere and is extremely private.

“[The buyer] owns a similar level home as this one on the Butler Chain of Lakes, with the same square footage, but was lacking privacy. Privacy was the main driving factor,” Wienker said.

Public records show the buyers as Ashish Pal and Sunita Bhanot as joint tenants. Both are doctors in the Orlando area.

Records also show the sellers as Kinsey C. Craichy and former Miss Florida Monica Craichy, founders of Living Fuel, which the company’s website describes as a drinkable meal.

Wienker sold the house to them back in 2011. According to the property appraiser, the price was $2.5 million.

Builder Victoria Martoccia built the home in 2010 and it was the 2010’s Parade of Homes High End Custom Home Winner. Wienker calls it the “Windermere Chateau” and says it was built in Belgian Provincial style.

Inside, there are nine bedrooms, 10 full bathrooms, a theater room and a large kitchen.

Outside, a pool, covered gazebo, outdoor kitchen, and boat dock provide plenty of recreational space.

The entire facade is low-maintenance brick and limestone.

“There are no paintable surfaces on the exterior of the home. It is solid. This is a home that is going to be standing probably 100 years from now,” Wienker said.

Inside, a double grand staircase with a dome is the first thing visitors to the home see, but the experience begins long before.

“You get to the private gate where you hit the call button and then these huge gates open up can you see this beautiful cobblestone drive that is so long. As you travel down this road, all of a sudden you’re transported. I felt like I was somewhere in the middle of Europe,” Wienker said.

This story first appeared in GrowthSpotter. To read about other notable home sales and early-stage development in Central Florida, go to GrowthSpotter.com and subscribe.

The 11,079-square-foot home on Chestnut Ridge Drive in Windermere’s Isleworth community just sold for $7.12 million, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.

Stewart’s wife, Tracey, completed the house in 2002 and raised the couple’s two children there and lived a private life.

“[Payne Stewart] never even got the chance to live in it since it was completed after his passing, and this is the first time it was ever for sale,” said Ron Ziolkowski with Re/Max Prime Properties, who represented the buyers. Monica Lochmandy with Isleworth Realty represented the Stewart family trust.

Stewart and five others died on Oct. 25, 1999, when the chartered jet they were on lost cabin pressure, incapacitating everyone on board. About four hours after it took off from Orlando on its way to Dallas, it crashed in a South Dakota field.

Stewart was the winner of 11 PGA tour events including three majors, the last being just a few months before he died. On the final hole at the 1999 U.S. Open, he sank a dramatic 15-foot putt for a one-stroke victory.

On the course, he was known almost as much for his creative and colorful clothing as he was for his golf skills.

Tracey Stewart told Golf Digest she and Payne had just finished plans for the house on the day the plane crashed. She made a few changes but moved her family in the next year.

The interior is not nearly as colorful as the knickers, high socks, and driving hat Payne Stewart usually wore, but it is stylish with lots of wood and quality craftsmanship.

According to public records, the buyers are Jessica and Kurt O’Brien, who are moving from a house on the Butler Chain of Lakes to this one because it better fits their needs. Kurt O’Brien was the CEO of Simply Self Storage, which was acquired last December by Blackstone REIT for $1.2 billion.

The four-bedroom, five-bathroom home sits on more than two acres on Lake Bessie and has a dock.

The home has many features, including a gift wrapping room and an office with a formal reception area and conference room overlooking the lake.

“The house has a massive garage underground and a movie theater. The rooms are oversized and everything is top of the line,” Ziolkowski explained, adding his clients will put their personality and personal touches into it. “They’ll make it even better.”

To read the full story about this home sale and other news about development in Central Florida, go to GrowthSpotter.com and subscribe.

The first took place in May, when a Pennsylvania couple paid a record $5.25 million for a nine-bedroom vacation home on Golden Bear Drive overlooking the resort’s Nicklaus golf course. It was followed in August by the $5.35 million sale of the 13-bedroom estate at 736 Desert Mountain Court, only to be eclipsed in late September by 501 Muirfield Loop for $5.9 million.

A couple of years ago, a $3.5 million sale was newsworthy. Now at least seven sales have topped that number this year and there have been at least a dozen sales above the $2 million mark in the past six months.

The homes in the Osceola County resort are attractive investments because they come in turnkey condition, professionally decorated and often with a lucrative history of rental income, or in the case of new construction, the potential for rental income. The house on Golden Bear Drive sold with $300,000 in future bookings already scheduled for 2021.

“Right now, lead times are insane and construction is taking longer and is more expensive than ever,” said Ryan McNally, Vice President of McNally Construction Group and McNally Real Estate Group, which built the house and also represented the seller. “A lot of people want a finished product. They don’t want to go through the construction process, and inventory is low so we’re seeing people come in and say, ‘hey I’ll take what you got.'”

The seller of the Muirfield Loop home planned to use it as a vacation rental but decided instead to take advantage of the hot market. He listed it first for $5 million before the house even had a certificate of occupancy, then decided in May to bump the price up to $5.9 million and got the full asking price.

“This has been going on for a while and you’re seeing that everything across the board, no matter what the neighborhood, have inched up and they are selling,” Tansey Soderstrom, president-elect of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association told GrowthSpotter. “Why people love Reunion is because of the amenities. You have the waterpark, you have 12 pools, you have three golf courses, you have restaurants, you have tennis.”

But there’s something else that sets the area apart from other high-end and amenity-laden areas in the Orlando metro area. Reunion allows short-term rentals where other luxury golf communities, like Golden Oak and Windermere, do not. That opens up the pool of buyers.

“You’ve got investors, you’ve got people looking for high-end secondary homes, and you’ve got primary residences, so three kinds of groups that are looking to buy,” McNally said.

The people looking for primary residences or secondary homes have many choices about where to build in the area. Investors don’t. And the potential for rental income has increased the buyer pool beyond high-net-worth individuals.

“It gives more options to someone who might not be able to necessarily have a home they can use one week a year and carry the cost of it. If they can rent these homes out, it gives them that added incentive where they can have a luxury vacation home in Orlando where it not only carries the cost but gets them some money back as well,” McNally said.

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The 23-room estate on Edgewater Drive closed May 20 for a record $3.725 million, making it the most expensive sale in the Orlando neighborhood of College Park, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.

“We knew it was a spectacular property, there’s not one like it and with all the history we felt like it warranted the list price,” said Sara Cambron, who along with Mick Night and John Pinel listed the property for Premier Sotheby’s International Realty. “We thought we would test the market and kind of see what happened, and it went quicker than we could blink.”

Sellers Dennis and Kay Benbow put their 9,114-square-foot Mediterranean Revival mansion on the market May 4. They had owned it since 1994 and held their daughter’s wedding at the home.

Cambron said the buyers are locals, moving from Winter Park to be closer to family who already live in the neighborhood. They quickly snatched up the property before it even officially went on sale.

“The day we put our sign up in the yard, we had a neighbor come and ask more about the property and we showed it that afternoon,” Cambron told GrowthSpotter. “They literally wrote the contract on site.”

Because of the quick contract, the property never fully went on the market. The time between the May 4 listing and the closing date was the inspection period.

Cambron said the buyers are planning to keep much of the character that makes this house special but may expand the kitchen to open it up more for better views.

The estate has a great waterfront location on 1.77 acres with Lake Adair in the front and Lake Concord in the back. It also has a rich history dating back to 1928 when it was built for coal heiress Grace Phillips Johnson.

Johnson was a philanthropist who made many contributions to the Central Florida area. The Johnson Center at Rollins College was named after her family.

With its large entertaining spaces, the home has been the site of many area charity functions and keeps to its sense of style.

“They really kept the history of the 1900s they did not, even with an addition, take away from that period. A lot of the finishes are original.” Cambron said.

To read the complete story on this and notable home sales in Central Florida, go to GrowthSpotter.com and subscribe.

The cedar bridge house on Manchester Road in Glastonbury, CT, sits 50 feet above ground, anchored to a steel support structure. It’s on the market for only the second time, listed for $530,000.

“It was built by a local architect who really didn’t want to disrupt any of the lot, so he built the house around the trees with minimal excavation and prepping of the lot. It’s pretty cool,” says listing agent Danielle Riendeau.

The architect is Wilfred Armster, known for building geometric structures with bridge elements. He’s accomplished at building on sloping lots or parcels that are difficult to build on.

Armster has won awards for his architecture, which emphasizes minimal changes to the natural setting. His signature elements include skylights and glass walls.

Built in 1983, the cedar bridge house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It measures 2,117 square feet.

The current owners bought the Colonial-style home in 1992 and completely modernized it, Riendeau explains. Now the residence features plenty of stone, wood, and clean lines.

“It feels expansive. When you enter the property and you open that first door and you see the skylights and all the natural light and the privacy and the beauty of the trees, it feels like you’re living in an adult, modern treehouse,” she says.

At night, the stars are visible through the skylights above the dining area and throughout the house.

The simple and clean kitchen features Poggenpohl aluminum cabinets, a Wolf cooktop, Sub-Zero refrigerator, Gaggenau oven, and a built-in wine cooler and coffee station.

“The kitchen looks amazing with top-of-the-line everything. It looks really beautiful with very clean lines,” Riendeau says.

All of the appliances and some of the furnishings are included in the sale, including a glass-top table and adjustable stools.

Matilda, an Australian shepherd, appears in many of the listing photos but is not included in the sale, Riendeau explains.

“She was in so many of the photos and she was just a love,” she adds.

The bedrooms boast great views. The shower in the master bathroom has a glass surround and is near a glass wall. A floating deck sits off the master bedroom, part of the 1,800 square feet of total deck space.

“When you’re sitting on it, you just don’t see the end, so it looks like it goes out and ends over nothing,” Riendeau explains. “When you’re up there, you have a really beautiful view of the structure.”

The house sits amid trees on a 3-acre lot just off a road. “You can’t really tell from the road what it is at all. You just see something back there.” Riendeau says. During the winter when the leaves are off the trees, the house reveals itself a bit more.

“There’s this massive structure that you know may or may not be an elevator. You’re just not sure what it is. It’s just one of those houses you always drive by and you really don’t notice and then once you notice, you never can unnotice it and you’re always wondering what it is.”

So who would want to snap up this architectural delight?

“It’s going to a nature lover who wants to live in a piece of art,” Riendeau says. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Unbelievable privacy, the beauty of nature, it’s just very cool.”

Tiffani Sherman is a Florida-based writer who covers real estate, finance, and travel.

The post Cedar Bridge House in Connecticut Hovers 50 Feet Above Ground appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com(R).

“The biggest things that attracted Ha Ha to the home were the lake and he has aspirations of having a large RV,” said Mel Bernstein, Partner and Broker for Regal Real Estate Professionals, who represented the seller. The home has a covered area to park and hook up an RV.

The home is in the deed-restricted Glades on Sylvan Lake neighborhood on Sylvan Woods Drive and sits on 2.67 acres. It is 4,151 square feet with four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a four-car pull-through garage.

Orlando native Ha Ha Clinton-Dix told the Realtor he wanted to buy a large RV, and his new house has a custom-built RV port and regulation-sized half-court basketball court.

Privacy and space are key features. “It is very much rural living in a suburban setting,” Bernstein told GrowthSpotter.

Clinton-Dix played high school football seasons at Edgewater High School and Dr. Phillips High School. He won two national championships while playing for the University of Alabama. As a pro, Clinton-Dix was a first-round draft pick in 2014 for the Green Bay Packers, who signed him to a 4-year, $8.33 million deal.

He was traded to the Washington Redskins in 2018 and became a free agent at the end of the season. Last month he signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal with Chicago.

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