Remember a time when life was filled with magic with one wondrous experience after the other?  It’s time to set sail on that adventure once again – and we’re ready to give you the key.  This 146 Santiago Drive address in the highly desirable Valencia at Abacoa master planned community is the perfect home for today—plenty of space without being overwhelming.

You’re going to love this Mediterranean style home from the moment you step across the romantic arched porch, all the while admiring the artistic details draped with bright bougainvillea.  Inside the home, high ceilings, plenty of curved Moorish style windows, and open balconies and loggias capture the tropical breezes.  This house is designed for real indoor-outdoor living!

During sunny days (and there are LOTS of them), sip your iced tea or lemonade within your covered brick lanai and take a dip in your perfectly private lap pool.  When it’s time to go indoors, gather together in the expansive Great Room to watch the evening news (including the latest northern weather disaster or Miami traffic jam) or play a fast-paced board game.

Want to step inside for a midday snack?  The Euro kitchen is beautifully appointed with plenty of cabinet space and sunny bay windows.   And before you step through the lanai again, you might even want to play a game of billiards with a room that’s perfect for your pool table or an arts and crafts display.

Then, after a fun-filled day, enjoy your well-deserved sleep in the enlarged master bedroom suite with his-and-her closets and an expansive master bath.  There’s lots of sleeping areas on the second level for your entire family – including those inevitable guests from up north – 5 bedrooms and 3.5 bedrooms in all.

This gorgeous home 3307 sqft is a steal for $735,000.  So grab it up now…and you can toast with your neighbors who probably paid far, far more for their own homes of quiet sophistication.

If you’re shopping for a home in an upscale neighborhood like Valencia at Abacoa (Jupiter, FL), you’ll find a number of sophisticated architectural details are part of the package. You don’t have to know their names to appreciate their charm … but it doesn’t hurt. So here are a couple of terms it pays to be familiar with…because you’ll be probably be paying for them!

Porte-cochere … a protective porch

If you drive up to a house and find yourself parked under an overhang or archway in front of the garage, you are passing through the porte-cochere. This French term translates as coach gate or carriage porch. It is always a porch at a main or secondary entrance to a building, through which a car can pass, so the occupants can get out under cover, protected from the weather, before the car pulls into the garage. While it is not to be confused with a carport, it can function as one, providing additional parking under cover.

Coffered ceiling… added dimensionality

In architecture a coffer is a panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling. The stone coffers of the ancient Greek and Romans are the earliest surviving examples, but a seventh-century BCE Etruscan chamber tomb reproduces a ceiling with beams and cross-beams lying on them, with flat panels. Old idea…great look!

Cupola …tower of light

This is a small, dome-like structure on top of the roof, like a crown. The word comes from Italian, indicating a vault that resembles an upside down cup. Cupolas in more modern houses can appear in the center of the house above a large staircase, where they add elegance, light and air.

Butler’s pantry … charming convenience

The traditional location for a butler’s pantry is in a short hallway between the kitchen and the dining room. Its purpose is to allow easy access to glassware and silver … and to provide a surface to set out appetizers, drinks, or dessert. Butler’s pantries, or china pantries, were built in English or American homes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Delightfully convenient, they are making a big comeback.

Yes, it’s true. I live in Valencia at Abacoa. But even if I didn’t, I’d want to. Abacoa is a pretty remarkable planned community by anyone’s standards. And Valencia is by far its crown jewel. Sure, green parks, little bridges, a delightful lake, community clubhouse and pool add to its charm. But what I love about this particular little enclave is it’s gated community feel and value without the yoke of an equity membership!

Valencia is the architectural product of four top builders…Frankel-Paone, Issa, The Spear Group and Delcrest.  Each brings different floor plans, perspectives and personal touches to its Mediterranean style. It’s a neighborhood designed with winding streets, rear-entry garages, Corinthian columns, charming front porches and lush landscaping. No cookie cutter community…it warrants those higher (high $600’s to $2 million) price tags.  And Valencia residents make sure those values are well maintained!

So if you’re in the market for something that offers just the right measure of exclusivity, take a close look at Valencia at Abacoa…where every house, every street will surprise and impress you.

You come across the house at 320 Murcia Drive. This 6-bedroom, 4.5 bath, 3600 square foot home sits on a surprisingly oversized lot across the street from the clubhouse and a park.

Inside it’s not just a fabulous, cream-colored dream of a house. It’s pristine … mint-condition … immaculate …perfection.  From the crown moldings to the recessed double tray ceiling in the formal dining room to the wrought iron spindles up the staircase to the Chicago pavers that deck out the most completely private pool out back … this house has style.

And the kind of extras you rarely come across. Well equipped with plenty of extras. Deep walk-in/storage. White wood plantation shutters in the huge family room and kitchen. French doors that lead from the living and family rooms onto the pool deck and covered lanai. A separate guest suite downstairs…a Jack and Jill two-bedroom/1 bath connecting suite upstairs. A two-car garage with one side so deep, it’s a tandem space … for two cars or one plus loads of storage. Then there’s the master suite with a walk-in closet nearly large enough to qualify as a room all its own. 

Yes, just when you thought you’d seen it all, you come across a perfect jewel. A small estate home perfectly located, ideally situated and waiting, just waiting for someone like you.

In a neighborhood known for remarkable homes, 120 Santiago Drive just naturally stands out. Built in 2004, this 3-bedroom plus den, 3000-plus square foot home is an artist’s palette of natural textures and tones. 

That’s because the owner personally flew to Indonesia to hand-select every piece of carved wood trim, every solid wood door, every wood inlay. Different shades of mahogany and teak are juxtaposed against marble, tile, granite, and river rock throughout. Why, the his-and-hers master bath alone is a visual marvel … complete with Jacuzzi tub and walk-in shower.

Now, factor in a huge master suite and an office/den on the first floor, a vast kitchen (complete with butler’s pantry and gas stove) that opens onto a truly great room, which opens onto a very private pool and a maintenance-free yard… and you begin to understand.

No detail here has been overlooked. The pool even has a swim current for laps. And the two bedrooms and bath upstairs are delightfully designed to feel more like an airy loft than a second story.

The unique personality of this home …  its mixture of seductive textures, space and light … makes it one-of-a-kind and not to be missed.  At $695,000 it’s sure to disappear quickly. So make it a point to see it before it’s sold!

Every once in a great while you walk into a house that feels, well, quite perfect. You could move in without changing nary a thing. Even the wallpaper is charming, delightful, completely unexpected.  That’s 148 Santiago Drive, in Valencia at Abacoa.

It sits unobtrusively on a very quiet street.  The playground and community pool are near by … but you’d never know it. On paper this home appears quite mundane… one story, 2800+ square feet, 3 bedrooms with an office/den, and three full baths. But, surprise! You leave ordinary at the door.

Inside the foyer is a formal living room to the left, with plenty of room for a baby grand. To the right, a spacious office and a full guest bath complete with a huge shower, of all things.

Pad quietly down the hall a bit and you come to a formal dining room with a double tray ceiling with subtly painted clouds and a trompe-l’oeil window scene on the wall.

Go a few feet further and find yourself in a vast open country kitchen with a family room that looks out on a brick lanai with a perfectly private lap pool and Jacuzzi waterfall.

Just beyond are two very ample bedrooms separated by a large Jack & Jill bath.  And then there’s the magnificent master suite with two large walk-in closets and double bath complete with a steam/shower.

And everywhere, every detail is tastefully, artfully attended to by a decorator who clearly knew her stuff. So much so that the overarching feeling is quiet sophistication, and serenity…now.  Seinfeld aside, that’s no joke! Not at $699,000 in a neighborhood surrounded by million dollar homes.

In Valencia at Abacoa … a Jupiter, FL neighborhood usually known for style, luxury and sophistication …  it’s rather unexpected to come across a house that actually feels like family.

One with all the trappings its million-dollar price tag implies. Yet, something priceless as well.

A feeling of family.

126 Segovia is as large as the life it affords.

Large as a grand foyer. A 30-foot cupola amid a huge square staircase. A vast family room with windows so high, they fill it with light. An immense private yard that can hold a brick lanai, gated swimming pool with fountain, and grass playground … backed up to a natural preserve. A chandelier large enough to dominate and define a formal dining room.  A master suite the size of an apartment … complete with foyer, two large walk-in closets, an enormous shower and soaking Jacuzzi tub, and doors that open onto the pool.

Designed with thoughtful details…

An artful use of shadow-boxing and wainscoting, warm bamboo floors, built-ins in every closet, a double porte cochere to keep off the rain drops, an extended garage with built-ins and tool table, a double stove (convection/microwave) with warming drawer, an extra wide fridge, an oversize laundry room, a bench step in the pool to keep little ones safe, even a hot and cold outdoor shower… these are the details that make this estate house so deliciously comfortable.

And one thing more.

A feeling of solidity, stability, warmth that seems built into its very foundation. A sense that this will always be home to happy little voices and busy little feet, dinner parties and birthday parties. A house built for years of growing up and together.

A home in search of a family.

Until recently anyone who wanted information on homes in Valencia at Abacoa went to ValenciaAtAbacoa.com for front views (elevations), floor plans and builder information on each home model available in the Valencia development. Then the development sold out and the site developers let that website become inactive. I thought that was a real shame, since it provides such important information for prospective buyers of resales in that neighborhood. So I took matters into my own hands. 

Since I live in Valencia, know the area so well, and have sold and listed so many homes there, I recently acquired that website and reactivated it. It’s up and running again for your convenience and mine. So you can once again go to ValenciaAtAbacoa.com for information on all the homes there … including which ones are currently up for sale. Now, how great is that!

Whoever said your home is your castle must surely have had this home in mind. With features reminiscent of a castle in Segovia, Spain … this 4400 square foot estate home at 155 Segovia Way is truly a world apart. And every bit that private.

Built with pride by Issa Homes … it’s set on one of the few truly oversized lots, and seems to tower above the rest in style and scale. And a tower it has … that stately curved section that distinguishes any true castle. Also a charming gated courtyard, a delightful front view of lake and fountain, a tropical landscape barrier enclosing a large green yard and perfect pool.

Inside, one large room flows into another casually, seamlessly, flawlessly. The rounded castle foyer with the domed ceiling leads the way… to a marvelous office with a built-in library, a large formal dining room with an intricate ceiling, a huge breakfast area that’s anything but a nook, a wide open family room/kitchen with an island large enough to warrant a name.

So it goes. Through 5 bedrooms and baths … including a separate guest suite over the garage. A sound system Abbey Road would covet …piped within and without, controllable from anywhere. And if all of that isn’t regal enough …well then step into the Butler’s pantry. Grab a bottle of wine from the enormous collection chilling in the cooler. And let’s discuss the royal pleasures of this home over a dry chardonnay.

Jupiter, FL is a nearly pristine little town with large city amenities. It’s where everyone fleeing the crime of Miami, the competitive nature of Boca, the outright snobbishness of Palm Beach finds far more than refuge. They find manageable living, true beauty, a sense of community Florida style. In short, there’s a reason so many people in southeast Florida are moving up the coast to Jupiter.

Yes, Jupiter is a world apart. And Abacoa is pivotal to that world. Very possibly the best-designed planned community anywhere … in or out of Florida. It’s its own little town, really. United, not divided, by its very unique neighborhoods.

Now, my little piece of Abacoa is Valencia. Filled with Mediterranean-style homes, gracious landscaping, and a truly upscale persona. And at the heart of Valencia is its clubhouse. Home to outdoor parties and competitions on the adjoining grassy field. Home to those who exercise religiously …  and those who simply pray they’ll make it though a workout. A clubby, cozy place with couches and chess sets – where you can play, chat or chill. It’s very bit as well designed as the neighborhood it serves.