A historic College Park mansion just set a sales record after being on the market for a very short time.
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.
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