Check out what it's like inside the largest, new mansion on Fort Myers Beach
Phil Fernandez
We've talked before about ever-evolving Fort Myers Beach, and the numerous wooden cottages that once dotted the shores and symbolized the more laidback, carefree, and sometimes rough and tumble times of the island.
Like on Bonita Beach, parts of Naples and beyond, batches of bungalows survived plenty of storms and hurricanes but not the rising tide of mansions rapidly replacing many of them in the teardown ventures of Southwest Florida's latest economic boom.
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In the past year alone, Fort Myers Beach and the 33931 ZIP code has featured over 160 residential property sales of more than $1 million, according to research by Aslan Realty Advisors real estate agent Paige Rausch, who follows the swiftly shifting sands closely.
That doesn't include the hundreds of millions of dollars in luxury construction on many of those properties and other land in recent years.
And none of the new concrete castles are larger than the 8,482 square feet Alair homes just erected for philanthropist and retired Six Flags CEO John Duffey and his wife, Becky at 600 Randy Lane, a short, almost unseen, side street that's been buzzing with activity.
"This is the largest home on Fort Myers Beach in terms of indoor living," Glen Harris III, regional partner for Alair Southwest Florida, said of the domicile tallying 16,539 square feet when including mega outdoor living space and storage. "The land was purchased for $2 million, and construction costs were north of $6 million. We estimate in today’s market, this home would sell somewhere between $10 to $13 million, if not more."
And this five-bedroom belle with seven bathrooms and two half-baths isn't beachfront.
It's parked along a 1,500-foot-long mid-island cul de sac that takes all of six minutes to traverse by foot while occasionally dodging a thumping dump truck or the other essential titanic tools and big-boy toys of the construction industry. The Rausch data shows five pieces of property selling on robust Randy Lane from $1.2 million to just under $2 million in the past year.
"This Fort Myers Beach bayside custom home is the largest and most expensive home we've built in Southwest Florida," Harris said of the estate, which also had topped North America for its 115 locales Alair serves. But these days, records are meant to be broken. The company is working with a future homeowner who saw the emerging bombshell from his boat and then bicycled by and now wants an even mightier one.
And maybe that's understandable. Harris describes the stunner as "a work of art inside and out."
"The open living area is certainly one of the more impressive features," Harris said. "The open family room and kitchen area is separated only by a multi-directional sliding glass door from the massive outdoor living space. Highlights of the indoor space include a beautiful large kitchen with a hidden pantry, a wet bar with a 300-bottle custom wine room, a linear gas fireplace and gorgeuos custom wood floors that transition into the shell stone tile on the rear lanai."
His team, in promoting the "coastal contemporary" abode, also described an elevated infinity pool "illuminated by fire on each side," thanks to a gas fireplace out there.
What else?
• An outdoor kitchen with a built-in grill and large television;
• hardwoods including oak, poplar, cypress and mahogany;
• custom marble details and engineered flooring and cabinetry;
• opal accents, and tray, vaulted, tongue-and-groove ceilings;
• counter-mounted liquor dispensing system Alair provided as a surprise gift;
• and a one-bedroom, one-bath cabana with full kitchen and laundry.
Not that, in this case, the dwelling on the half-acre it replaced was a shack or anything: 3,048 square feet built in 1969 with four bedrooms, three baths and a screened in pool.
Harris was open about the challenges along the way for the upgrade, though not insurmountable.
"Our original construction timeline for this project was 18 months. However, we were somewhat affected by recent shortages and delays. Labor shortages, mixed with supply chain delays on glass, caused us to miss our expected finish date by about three to four months," Harris said. "We’re proud to report that the majority of the house was completed and move-in ready within 20 months."
And he led that while juggling other beauties.
"We have three offices currently in Southwest Florida — Sanibel-Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, and Old Naples — and another in South Tampa," Harris said. "Each of them finishes between 5 and 15 projects per year of varying sizes and scope, including remodels."
The latter is how the Duffeys hooked up with Alair in the first place, when it installed an elevator in their previous bayfronter a couple of miles away on Widgeon Terrace.
“We had been doing a lot of renovations, but decided we were just never going to get it to where we wanted,” said John Duffey, a Michigan Stater who has given millions of dollars to his alma mater and been a supporter of local causes.
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The Duffeys got what they wanted and more.
“This has definitely been at the top of the list of experiences for us,” said Becky Duffey, who with her husband are partly drawn to the area because of all the fellow Midwesterners here. "I was standing in the kitchen, looking through the family room at the outdoor space and view, thinking it doesn't get much better than this.”
These kinds of efforts by Alair and other firms are evident up and down Estero Island.
"Like other small towns that go through a transformation, gentrification era, all the old simple homes and buildings start coming down and large modern structures replace them," Rausch said.
But that's not limited to Fort Myers Beach.
A similar experience has been underway in Naples Park. Ovadia “Ovi” Levy, executive chairman of Ovi Properties just began the first of five model houses there in northern Collier County, walking distance to Vanderbilt Beach.
“Naples Park is the greatest hidden gem in Naples,” Levy said Wednesday. "Centrally-located, yet still quiet and private.”
Levy is coordinating with Fox Premier Builders, JMDG Architecture and Clive Daniel Home on this latest enterprise.
The initial endeavor calls for a four-bedroom, four-bathroom at 708 92nd Ave. N. in an area where a one-story two-bedroom, perhaps three, with duplexes sprinkled in had been more of a norm in past years.
Four homes have sold in the neighborhood this week and last, according to Zillow. They range from an 888-square-foot, three-bedroom, one bath with a pool for $518,000 to a 1996 four-bedroom, three bath for $1.7 million.
The model should be completed by September, Levy said.
Based at the Naples Daily News, Columnist Phil Fernandez (pfernandez@gannett.com) writes In the Know as part of the USA TODAY NETWORK. Support Democracy and subscribe to a newspaper.