Key Real Estate

Joy and John Miller, of Peoria, Ill., sold their waterfront home in Bay Isles, Unit 2, at 3331 Bayou Sound, to Louise and R. Macy Harris III, from Rochester, N.Y., for $1.2 million.

The four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath residence was constructed in 1995 with 3,230 square feet of living area and a swimming pool. The Millers acquired the property for $1,225,000 in January 2003.

Tangerine Bay Club
Deborah and Philip Maiese, from Arlington, Va., purchased Unit 238 in Building 2-A at the 90-unit Tangerine Bay Club, 350 Gulf of Mexico Drive, for $900,000. The sellers were Patricia and James Christiansen, of Sarasota.

The three-bedroom, four-bath condo was built in 1992 with 2,529 square feet of living area. The Christiansens purchased the condo for $471,200 in June 1992.

The Pierre
Allison Nortier, of Pittsburgh, sold her Unit 703 at the 67-unit Pierre condominium, 455 Longboat Club Road, to Kim and Thomas Speer, of Haan, Germany, for $885,000. The three-bedroom, three-bath condominium was built in 1990 with 2,470 square feet of living space.

Nortier bought the condominium for $238,000 in April 2007.

Seaplace VI
Lugene and Mark Olson bought Unit G8-108B at Seaplace VI from C. Lynn and Ingvar Tornberg, 700 John Ringling Blvd., for $660,000. The three-bedroom, two-bath condominium was constructed in 1978 with 1,604 square feet of living area. The Tornbergs bought the apartment for $777,000 in August 2001.

Inn on the Beach
Douglas Parks, of Sarasota, sold his 640-square-foot Apartment 302 in Building 5 at the 221-unit Inn on the Beach condominium to James Coddington and his wife, Carol Harris, of Cincinnati, for $203,000. The condo, at 250 Sands Point Road, was constructed in 1982. Parks purchased the apartment for $239,000 in July 2004.

LBK Moorings Marina
Andrew Weeks, from Exeter, N.H., bought Boat Slip 3 on O Pier at the 294-slip Longboat Key Moorings Marina, 2600 Harbourside Drive, for $135,000. The sellers were Susan and David Varnadoe, of Winter Springs. The Varnadoes paid the same amount for the slip in July 2001.

Lido Surf & Sand
Ian Parsons, of Sarasota, sold his Unit 716 at Lido Surf & Sand, 1104 Ben Franklin Drive on Lido Beach, to Philip Bostock for $725,000. The two-bedroom, three-bath apartment was built in 1976 with 2,324 square feet of living area. Parsons acquired the condo for $900,000 in 2005.

Holiday season cools sales
After last week’s sudden surge of 21 realty sales on the keys, the market cooled during the holiday-buying season with just seven sales recorded Dec. 7 through Dec. 10. Once the diversions of holiday shopping are behind us, the decks should be cleared for increased sales during this winter tourist season that is evident from the tremendous increase in vehicular traffic.

$7 million home sales cap ’09
Looking back on 2009, one of the keys’ real-estate highlights of the year was the sale of the 5,989-square-foot house along New Pass at 1301 Westway Drive last July for $7,423,500 to Anne and Robert Essner, of Morristown, N.J., and Naples.

The seller was Sole Investments LLC, a Florida limited-liability company with a New York City address whose managing member, Gianluigi Vittadini, signed the deed of sale.

Corralling the buyers and sellers for this year’s blockbluster transaction were selling agent Lisa Rooks Morris, of Prudential Palms Realty, and listing agent, Linda Roe Dickinson, of Michael Saunders & Co.

Prior to this, the highest price fetched for a single-family home on the keys this year was the $7,125,000 paid last March by Basil Zinnis to Barbara and Charles Palmer for their Gulf-front home and guesthouse at 5871 Gulf of Mexico Drive.

Kent Chetlain is a veteran Florida journalist and historian, a former Manatee County commissioner and a holder of a Florida real-estate license. He has chronicled real-estate activity in this area since 1957.