Bidding for luxury
Luxury homebuyers looking for their own beachfront Mediterranean resort (but stateside), an opportunity is coming this week in Ponte Vedra Beach.
The 12,751-square-foot home at 1263 Ponte Vedra Blvd., to be held at auction Friday, resembles an enormous, curvilinear fortress that could easily be seen on the Italian Riviera. This home is situated on 1.5 acres with 200 feet of frontage on the Atlantic Ocean, with views of the Intracoastal Waterway just across Florida A1A as well. The roofline of the six-bedroom, 7.5-bath manse is highlighted by a series of rotundas and turrets, many finished on the inside with wood-coffered ceilings.
Built in 1995, the home entered the market in July 2023 priced at $11.9 million and was reduced once to $10.9 million. That listing term expired in January and the owners opted to hold it at auction, a trend that’s been gaining traction on the First Coast.
Friday’s auction is hosted by Platinum Luxury Auctions, which also handled two others in the fourth quarter last year. One of those was an ultramodern and glamorous property at 5147 Dixie Landing Drive in Jacksonville. Situated on 4.5 acres along the Intracoastal Waterway, just south of Butler Boulevard, it sold in October for $5,966,000. Another modern dwelling at 2419 S. Ponte Vedra Blvd. fetched a winning bid of $2,741,500 in December.
According to Trayor Lesnock, Platinum’s founder and president, the Dixie Landing auction drew 15 bidders.
“Per our research, that is one of Jacksonville’s highest sales on record for an Intracoastal or riverfront property,” Lesnock said. “The South Ponte Vedra Beach home, a bit more limited in appeal due to having only two true bedrooms, sold via a four-bidder auction.”
According to the auction brochure, the home at 1263 Ponte Vedra Blvd. sits on a 30-foot built elevation, which should offer a bit more protection from damaging storms. The living areas feature slate and hardwood flooring, custom antique doors and two kitchens with top-of-the-line appliances, as well as butler pantries. There’s also an elevator, media room, ocean-view office, fitness room with mirrored walls and rubber
shock flooring and a climate-controlled wine cellar capable of holding over 2,200 bottles.
A home this size would naturally have multiple outdoor living areas, and this one does not disappoint. A small patio on the west side of the home includes a fountain and a wood-burning fireplace. The main outdoor living space — overlooking the ocean — is highlighted by multiple sitting areas, a fire pit, a lagoon-style pool with a waterfall and spa, as well as several covered lanais.
Since the home is nearly 30 years old, a number of upgrades have taken place, among them new Wolf convection ovens and a warming drawer, several lighting fixtures, flooring, mirrors, shower doors, HVAC systems and pool equipment, to name a few.
What is the auction process?
Lesnock pointed out that the auction is being held without reserve, which means there is no minimum qualifier for pricing and the property will sell to the auction’s highest bidder, regardless of the amount of the winning bid. Once bidding ends, the high bid is not subject to any approval by the seller or any other party and the sale is final. It also cannot be withdrawn.
The auction will be live Friday at the property site beginning at 5 p.m. Describing the live bidding process as “expedient,” Lesnock noted that it can sometimes take as little as 10 to 15 minutes to complete the auction.
“This is not a multi-day, ‘rolling’ auction,” he said. “Bidders can be physically present on-site, or can bid remotely from anywhere in the world, using phone or FaceTime, for example.”
Lesnock added that each luxury auction typically has a mix of on-site and remote participants, all of whom bid together in real time. To qualify, one must put forth a refundable bid deposit of $100,000 and submit a signed copy of the luxury auction terms of sale by 5 p.m. Thursday, one day prior to the sale.
For Lesnock’s team, those individual features are what often sets one home apart from another in terms of the “wow” factor. Since its founding in 2011, the company has handled multimillion-dollar listings all across the country and beyond. A quick glance at their website reveals upcoming and past auctions for a Colorado mountain retreat.; a stately manor on 6 acres in Nashville, Tenn. (once rented by
Adele); a Cayman Islands getaway; a glamorous Miami penthouse; and a pair of actual villas in Northern Italy.
With so many breathtaking properties seen every day, one might be tempted to think the staff would become immune to the sight of luxury.
Lesnock admitted that there is a tendency to become rather immune to such properties after seeing so many of them over the years. On the other hand, he said, there is still some room to be surprised or impressed when encountering something truly new or unique.
“While it’s difficult to think of a particular property that reached the level of ‘dazzling’ our team members, what’s more common is how some of us fall for a particular feature or amenity of a given home,” he said. “For example, one of my favorite rooms in a house is the office or study, so I happened to love a property from many years ago, wherein the owner built a secret bathroom into his study, accessed only by pressing a hidden button inside a bookshelf. It was very ‘James Bond.’ To the rest of my team, however, it was a ‘ho-hum’ feature.”
For more information visit PlatinumLuxuryAuctions.com.