Lido Shores, which includes Morningside Drive and Place, Center Place, John Ringling Parkway and Bowdoin Circle in addition to Westway, has been a trendsetting neighborhood since it was developed 60 years ago by Philip Hiss. What followed was a construction boom that took advantage of Florida’s explosion of growth in the 1950s and ’60s — and a lot of the houses built became icons of the midcentury modern Sarasota school of architecture.

Ideally positioned on boating water but also with a moderately secluded beach and no drawbridge to the mainland, Lido Shores is blowing up again. That is especially true on Westway’s — it’s “West Way” on the street signs — eastern half. Four construction or remodeling projects are under way, and five high-end houses are on the market.

Another big house, which had been listed at $8.9 million, was just taken off the MLS on the water side of the street, which could be called “CEO row,” given that it counts among its residents several high-earning corporate executives who recently retired.

“It’s the best spot in the whole city,” said Realtor Barbara Ackerman of Coldwell Banker Previews, “because it has a waterfront feel, and you feel like you are on an island. It is all about that location.”

Prices for waterfront homes are running around $950 a square foot on New Pass, where the houses have boat docks but no beach or direct Gulf views, and $1,050 or more on the west end, where the vistas are expansive and the sand plentiful.

Several of the most expensive home sales in area history have been recorded on Westway. At No. 1219, Ackerman’s client paid $13.2 million in 2003 for her then-new mansion and the teardown next door, which she razed and replaced with a garden that has the distinction of overlooking the blue-green waters of New Pass. As the lot and the house were sold by the same seller, Sandcastles of Sarasota, to the same buyer at the same closing, the Herald-Tribune reported it as a record sale.

Two years later, that house-lot package went on the market for $20 million, but no sale resulted. Now Ackerman, of Coldwell Banker Previews, has convinced the seller to re-divide the property and list the house alone at $8.9 million.

“What is driving the market right now is price,” said Ackerman. “When people start getting into double digits ($10 million-plus), they really start thinking about it. When you enter into that zone, there is hardly any air at all.

“For most people,” added Ackerman, including CEOs in her assertion, “this is a second home. It is like, ‘Do I want it? Yes. Do I need it? No.’ “

Also in 2003, a large Westway home on the beach sold for $11 million, and the large lot next door for $5.5 million. But there were six months between those transactions. Those parcels are now combined into a 5-acre Gulf-front estate for which the word “spectacular” would be appropriate. Even the county property appraiser is impressed, giving it a 2011 market value of $11,373,000, No. 1 in the county for a residence.

Also for sale is a 6,200-square-foot house developed by Doug Martel in 2003 at 1355 Westway. Jonas Forslund of Coldwell Banker Previews has that one listed at $5.5 million.

“It has had very little use,” said Forslund. “The current owners bought it as a retirement home, then he decided not to retire. It can pass for a new house.”

Forslund said Westway Drive is a prestige address because of its geography.

“The fascination with Westway is that a lot of people like the Gulf, but they also like to boat,” he said. “But where are you going to put a boat if you are right on the Gulf? With Westway, you really get the best of both worlds, and there aren’t a lot of other locations in Sarasota where you get that.

“Once something develops a name, well, Westway Drive — how many people don’t want to have that as their address?”

At least as long as Westway is preceded by an odd number. The waterfront and beachfront properties have odd-numbered addresses. Even numbers on Westway are “a whole different market,” said Forslund.

These landlocked residences sell for a tenth of those across the street. Right across from Christina Landry’s stunning modernist house — recently enlarged by architect Jonathan Parks and listed by Landry, a Michael Saunders agent, at $7.5 million — is a Westway “starter home” at $750,000.

“I call this the ghetto side of the street,” said one occupant of an even-numbered house. She added that “it’s horrible” how the neighborhood has changed, what with all the big houses inhabited just a few months of the year.

“There are two different sides of the street,” said Jerry Sparkman, an architect with TOTeMS Architecture who is remodeling a Westway house with an even number. It is called Strandhus (Danish for beach house), although it is not on the beach. It is not owned by a CEO, but by a chief operating officer.

“Across the street from the place where we are working is … big bucks, with the big view of the pass,” said Sparkman.

“On the other side,” he said, “there is wealth there, but you also have people who have maybe been camped out for several decades in those little houses. I love that. That is why I was inspired to work on this project, because it wasn’t one of these big projects on the water.”

Another even-numbered construction project is a large modernist house at the corner of Center and Westway. The architect is Jonathan Parks. And across from Tim Seibert’s 1952 Hiss Studio, Mark Sultana of DSDG is the architect for a modern house being built by Voigt Brothers Construction for English clients.

At the east end of Westway, Modus Operandi Construction is building a West Indies-style beach house on speculation. The price is $5.5 million, or $1,000 a square foot.

Design dichotomy

Lido Shores started out as an architectural laboratory of sorts. Phil Hiss had traveled the world, studying how people lived in the tropics. When he settled in Sarasota in 1948, he wanted to put what he had learned into practice.

When Hiss purchased the sandy northwest end of Lido Key, he had what he needed to create a mecca of modernism. He hired such architects as Paul Rudolph and Tim Seibert to create progressive houses, including Rudolph’s Umbrella House.

Most of the houses built in Lido Shores, including one Hiss designed for himself at 1301 Westway (now demolished), were modern. But in the past 20 years, many small mansions that Ackerman describes as “neoclassical” have been built.

“Down the street are homes that inspired me to work here,” said Sparkman, adding that Westway Drive “is one of our great joys in terms of architectural expression, and shows an optimistic time from the ’50s forward.”

Now, Westway has an almost 50-50 split of moderns, by Guy Peterson and other third-generation modernists, and neoclassicals, by such architects as Clifford Scholz.

“That neighborhood … has always inspired people to build extraordinary homes of whatever style. It is a dense place for experimentation,” said Sparkman. “Once there are a number of homes that set a standard, with each one the level gets a bit better.

“It makes for a fun place to work.”

Casey Key Road may be the most scenic Sunday drive along our coastline, but for those who like their high-end real estate framed by a fascinating palette of architecture, Westway Drive on the north end of Lido Key may hold the most interest.

Lido Shores, which includes Morningside Drive and Place, Center Place, John Ringling Parkway and Bowdoin Circle in addition to Westway, has been a trendsetting neighborhood since it was developed 60 years ago by Philip Hiss. What followed was a construction boom that took advantage of Florida’s explosion of growth in the 1950s and ’60s — and a lot of the houses built became icons of the midcentury modern Sarasota school of architecture.

Ideally positioned on boating water but also with a moderately secluded beach and no drawbridge to the mainland, Lido Shores is blowing up again. That is especially true on Westway’s — it’s “West Way” on the street signs — eastern half. Four construction or remodeling projects are under way, and five high-end houses are on the market.

Another big house, which had been listed at $8.9 million, was just taken off the MLS on the water side of the street, which could be called “CEO row,” given that it counts among its residents several high-earning corporate executives who recently retired.

“It’s the best spot in the whole city,” said Realtor Barbara Ackerman of Coldwell Banker Previews, “because it has a waterfront feel, and you feel like you are on an island. It is all about that location.”

Prices for waterfront homes are running around $950 a square foot on New Pass, where the houses have boat docks but no beach or direct Gulf views, and $1,050 or more on the west end, where the vistas are expansive and the sand plentiful.

Several of the most expensive home sales in area history have been recorded on Westway. At No. 1219, Ackerman’s client paid $13.2 million in 2003 for her then-new mansion and the teardown next door, which she razed and replaced with a garden that has the distinction of overlooking the blue-green waters of New Pass. As the lot and the house were sold by the same seller, Sandcastles of Sarasota, to the same buyer at the same closing, the Herald-Tribune reported it as a record sale.

Two years later, that house-lot package went on the market for $20 million, but no sale resulted. Now Ackerman, of Coldwell Banker Previews, has convinced the seller to re-divide the property and list the house alone at $8.9 million.

“What is driving the market right now is price,” said Ackerman. “When people start getting into double digits ($10 million-plus), they really start thinking about it. When you enter into that zone, there is hardly any air at all.

“For most people,” added Ackerman, including CEOs in her assertion, “this is a second home. It is like, ‘Do I want it? Yes. Do I need it? No.’ “

Also in 2003, a large Westway home on the beach sold for $11 million, and the large lot next door for $5.5 million. But there were six months between those transactions. Those parcels are now combined into a 5-acre Gulf-front estate for which the word “spectacular” would be appropriate. Even the county property appraiser is impressed, giving it a 2011 market value of $11,373,000, No. 1 in the county for a residence.

Also for sale is a 6,200-square-foot house developed by Doug Martel in 2003 at 1355 Westway. Jonas Forslund of Coldwell Banker Previews has that one listed at $5.5 million.

“It has had very little use,” said Forslund. “The current owners bought it as a retirement home, then he decided not to retire. It can pass for a new house.”

Forslund said Westway Drive is a prestige address because of its geography.

“The fascination with Westway is that a lot of people like the Gulf, but they also like to boat,” he said. “But where are you going to put a boat if you are right on the Gulf? With Westway, you really get the best of both worlds, and there aren’t a lot of other locations in Sarasota where you get that.

“Once something develops a name, well, Westway Drive — how many people don’t want to have that as their address?”

At least as long as Westway is preceded by an odd number. The waterfront and beachfront properties have odd-numbered addresses. Even numbers on Westway are “a whole different market,” said Forslund.

These landlocked residences sell for a tenth of those across the street. Right across from Christina Landry’s stunning modernist house — recently enlarged by architect Jonathan Parks and listed by Landry, a Michael Saunders agent, at $7.5 million — is a Westway “starter home” at $750,000.

“I call this the ghetto side of the street,” said one occupant of an even-numbered house. She added that “it’s horrible” how the neighborhood has changed, what with all the big houses inhabited just a few months of the year.

“There are two different sides of the street,” said Jerry Sparkman, an architect with TOTeMS Architecture who is remodeling a Westway house with an even number. It is called Strandhus (Danish for beach house), although it is not on the beach. It is not owned by a CEO, but by a chief operating officer.

“Across the street from the place where we are working is … big bucks, with the big view of the pass,” said Sparkman.

“On the other side,” he said, “there is wealth there, but you also have people who have maybe been camped out for several decades in those little houses. I love that. That is why I was inspired to work on this project, because it wasn’t one of these big projects on the water.”

Another even-numbered construction project is a large modernist house at the corner of Center and Westway. The architect is Jonathan Parks. And across from Tim Seibert’s 1952 Hiss Studio, Mark Sultana of DSDG is the architect for a modern house being built by Voigt Brothers Construction for English clients.

At the east end of Westway, Modus Operandi Construction is building a West Indies-style beach house on speculation. The price is $5.5 million, or $1,000 a square foot.

Design dichotomy

Lido Shores started out as an architectural laboratory of sorts. Phil Hiss had traveled the world, studying how people lived in the tropics. When he settled in Sarasota in 1948, he wanted to put what he had learned into practice.

When Hiss purchased the sandy northwest end of Lido Key, he had what he needed to create a mecca of modernism. He hired such architects as Paul Rudolph and Tim Seibert to create progressive houses, including Rudolph’s Umbrella House.

Most of the houses built in Lido Shores, including one Hiss designed for himself at 1301 Westway (now demolished), were modern. But in the past 20 years, many small mansions that Ackerman describes as “neoclassical” have been built.

“Down the street are homes that inspired me to work here,” said Sparkman, adding that Westway Drive “is one of our great joys in terms of architectural expression, and shows an optimistic time from the ’50s forward.”

Now, Westway has an almost 50-50 split of moderns, by Guy Peterson and other third-generation modernists, and neoclassicals, by such architects as Clifford Scholz.

“That neighborhood … has always inspired people to build extraordinary homes of whatever style. It is a dense place for experimentation,” said Sparkman. “Once there are a number of homes that set a standard, with each one the level gets a bit better.

“It makes for a fun place to work.”