It was an extraordinarily hot summer this year in Naples — but we’re not talking about the temperature.
Rather, high-end homes were on fire, with three sales topping the $20 million mark since July.
Last summer, no homes reached this benchmark.
And several others are on the market at prices that meet or well exceed this lofty eight-figure price tag, including a brand-new mansion and a re-creation of a 16th century Palladian villa in Naples, Italy.
“I think we will see extraordinary sales more frequently,” said Naples real estate broker Brenda Fioretti. “There are only so many large waterfront properties.”
The bulk of the value is in the land, she added, which is why homes with large acreage and the best views tend to attract the highest prices.
The top-priced sale this summer was 550 Admiralty Parade in Port Royal, a 14,119-square foot mansion on almost two-and-a-half acres overlooking Gordon Pass.
Built in 1989, it was the longtime home of Naples-based entrepreneur Len and Wanda Zaiser and was sold to a land trust.
Now 78 years old, Len Zaiser founded and sold a number of companies during his career, including Engineering Research, Defense Research, Southern Research, Inovo and Structure Medical.
At $28.5 million, the sprawling beige home sold for more than twice the average list price of Port Royal homes, which the listing website Trulia.com says is $10.8 million.
And it sold without ever being listed on the multiple listing service, said Naples real estate agent Jackie May, who specializes in the upper end.
May expects the high-end market to rise even higher now that the Lamborghinis and Porsches are starting to roll into town.
Even the recent volatility of the stock market doesn’t faze the big spenders, she said.
“They’re never troubled by the financial difficulties of the rest of the world,” she said. “It’s its own market.”
Another home that sold this summer without ever being officially listed was 4500 Gordon Drive. The white-columned manor house with blue shutters was once the home of Naples Bay developer Jack Antaramian, who became entangled in legal troubles with his former partners and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in February. Antaramian sold the house for $11.9 million in 2011 to a limited liability company, which in turn sold it to another LLC for $13.7 million the same year.
In July, the house was sold for $20 million to Michael and Gaelyn McGavick of Saratoga Springs, New York. Michael McGavick is chief executive officer of XL Group, an insurance company headquartered in Ireland, with about 60 offices in more than 20 countries and 4,000 employees worldwide.
Also in July, 455 Gulf Shore Boulevard, a saffron-colored Mediterranean-style villa with bright green trim known as Villa del Sol, sold for $21 million to a Canadian-based trust. The former owners of the one-and-a-half acre beachfront property were Wilbert and Peggy Hamstra. A developer from Wheatfield, Indiana who once flew Billy Joel in his private jet so he could sing at the Super Bowl, Wilbert Hamstra built the four-bedroom, six-bath house out of stone and marble, surrounded by heavy landscaping with two waterfalls and several fountains to suppress street noise.
Top-end homes have been on a tear for at least a year, boosted by an improving economy.
For the 12 months ending in August, home prices in the $2 million-and-up range grew 14 percent, to $3.25 million from $2.85 million, according to the latest statistics from the Naples Area Board of Realtors.
Closed sales grew 9 percent, to 409 from 376, and pending sales 13 percent, to 468 from 416.
The uptick in prices and sales wasn’t unnoticed by those who owned some of the area’s toniest properties and were waiting for the right moment to sell. During the same period, supply jumped 30 percent, to 414 from 318.
Yet the added supply didn’t extend the amount of time mansions stood on the market. Days on the market dropped to 126 from 131, a 4 percent decline.
But at the apex of the market, homes may take a year or two to sell, said Naples broker Bill Earls, who has the two highest-priced listings in town.
“It’s rarefied air,” he said. “You have to match up a person who can afford to spend a certain amount with the right property.”
At $68 million, the top-priced listing currently on the market is 3100 Gordon Drive, owned by a trust for industrialist Randal Bellestri, who had purchased it in March 2012 for a record-setting $47.3 million. The cream-colored palatial 16,000-square-foot Island Colonial mansion — which dwarfs the home of Gov. Rick Scott next door — went on the market in September 2014 after Bellestri went to jail for tax evasion.
With five bedrooms, six baths and a seven-car garage, the six-year-old home has retractable glass walls and 277 feet of Gulf frontage on its nearly five-acre lot.
Naples’ second-highest priced listing is at 2750 Gordon Drive, also known as La Capanna. With about 18,200 square feet, plus a guesthouse and five-bay garage, the house has a 500-bottle wine room, interactive fountain with LED lighting and a beachside game room.
Built in 1999 and extensively renovated, it’s owned by a trust for Robert A. Watson, former president and chief executive officer of units of Westinghouse Electric and former chief executive officer of Transamerica Financial Corp.
For $49 million, you can buy 1832 Galleon Drive, a 13-year-old Port Royal waterfront home with five bedrooms and 10 baths, surrounding a wide courtyard. Loggias line the rear of the 13,000-square- foot house, which has extensive woodwork, coffered ceilings and indoor and outdoor fireplaces. The Mexican fossil stone exterior and solid plaster walls took 100 workers two years to finish. It’s owned by James and Gail McCready; he’s the chairman of the Cypress Cos., a private investment firm specializing in the industrial sector in Akron, Ohio. Campbell and Prebish is the listing brokerage.
May holds an open house every afternoon at the highest-priced new house in Naples, 840 Admiralty Parade. With an asking price of $22.9 million, the 8,971-square-foot house has an elevator with elaborate ironwork, onyx master bath, outdoor pizza oven and 700-gallon saltwater aquarium. Sited on nearly an acre, its pool overlooks Keewaydin Island. It was custom built by BCBE Construction LLC.
At an even $20 million, the least expensive of the top-tier homes is 3555 Gordon Drive, a 7,444-square-foot villa of marble and stone (the master bath is carved with lion’s heads and ribbons) and five bedrooms and seven baths on nearly a half-acre lot.
Owner Ken Pauza said in an email that the six-year-old villa is a replica of a 16th century villa in Naples, Italy designed by famed architect Andrea Palladio, who also designed Vatican City.
Pauza, a founding partner of Texas Spine and Joint Hospital in Tyler, Texas, said he hand-sawed the home’s antique cypress logs on site with a sawmill, “exactly as they did five centuries earlier.”
“Although I’m a surgeon, I sawed because a surgeon wants to work with his hands,” Pauza said.
Its solid stone blocks are four- to six-feet thick, which keeps the temperature cool and even; the heaviest weighs 27 tons.
“It’s honest and simple,” he said. “It intentionally lacks grandeur, opulence and embellishments weighing down many more expensive, artificial Naples Mediterranean houses.”