Many, most homes today are designed with front-entry garages. And I personally hate them! They detract from the beauty of a home, dominating the visual scene.

More than just an architectural eyesore, front-entry garages create the opportunity for all sorts of unpleasant views. How often have you looked into an open garage to see car repairs in progress, unpacked moving boxes stacked to the rafters, piles of trash, garbage cans, messy do-it-yourself projects in process, or bags of dog food and piles of old clothes scattered about. Hardly appealing to the neighbors.

We all live with a certain degree of clutter and messiness.  But with the right garage orientation you can dramatically limit its public exposure!

Valenica at Abacoa front elevation without garage views!

Homes have private alleys with rear-entry garages!

It’s called the Grand Vizcaya.

It’s the largest model of all the homes sold in Valencia at Abacoa. Designed by Frankel Paone, it’s far more than grand. It’s grandeur with a capital EUR! European in style. Palatial in scope. And this one has a marvelous address.

Because 118 Valencia resides on a large corner lot with no home behind, and just a wide green royal palm lined median in front.

5 Bedrooms, 4.5 baths, 3 car garage & unending space!

As if this 4483 square foot home isn’t spacious enough, cathedral and recessed ceilings exponentially increase that feeling of light and air. As does the openness of kitchen leading onto family room leading out to patio & glorious freeform pool … all enclosed with a high privacy wall.

There are 4 bedrooms, three with adjacent baths, a large balcony and new wood floors upstairs. A massive living room (with a REAL wood-burning fireplace and huge window), formal dining room, breakfast nook/kitchen/family room downstairs … along with a master suite that leads directly to the pool through French doors, for a French dip.

As with most Italian-inspired palazzos, living is art.

Priced at $1,295,000, this home offers every feature you seek in an estate home… beginning with its stately exterior. And there’s more … far more. But we’re not giving anything else away. This one needs to be seen, needs to be felt, to be truly appreciated.

 

Take the pulse of the market.  Check out which houses sold this year —the neighborhoods, locations, prices and timeframes from listing to closing. If you’re getting ready to sell your home, get a feel for what you can realistically expect. Then put yourself in my hands and watch me exceed expectations! Read the rest of this entry

I’m a New Jersey girl. My sole experience with fish before I moved to Florida was ordering it Sunday morning at the local deli. But, when I moved to Miami and married an honest-to-Pete Floridian, I got a crash course in everything with gills.

Five years ago, we escaped to Jupiter. Two fugitives from congestion, urban sprawl, high crime rates. Moved into a townhouse on a lake, just across from where we were building our dream house.  We were home in Valencia at Abacoa.

Now, in those days, we still commuted daily to work down south. And they were long days we put in. So every night that first summer, when we got back home, we went out to the lake to unwind, kick back, fish for bass.

I learned to cast and I learned to jig. But most of all I learned to appreciate the consummate skill of my husband, the bass master. As this picture will attest, the lakes in Abacoa aren’t mere decoration.  They constitute an eco-system that makes fish stories like ours possible.

So how big was he? He was THAAAAAT big!

The address is 124 Santiago Drive in Valencia at Abacoa. The neighborhood alone should tip you off. But nothing will quite prepare you for this house. Not for the Brazilian cherry and mud set porcelain floors (that you’ll probably mistake for marble). Not for the dream kitchen with two extensive islands (one a work station), two built-in stainless fridges, and the commercial gas stove. Not for  the adjoining family room with the hand-coffered ceiling (the cost of which could have paid for a year away at college). Or, just past the family room, the wall of French doors the length of the house that looks onto a perfectly shaded oversized lap pool with a lion’s head fountain.

Impressed yet? Guess what? The French doors end by a private staircase leading up to a separate guest apartment. And where, you may ask, are the four other bedrooms and baths in this 4000 square foot Mediterranean delight? The master sweet (and it is) is downstairs…the other three are up. And I tell you the layout, the architectural detailing, the level of taste throughout is not to be believed. It must be seen. So what are you waiting for? Even in this market, this one won’t last long.

Yesterday, May 31^st, the neighborhoods of Abacoa came together in quite a remarkable way. Their residents competed at tennis, golf and track in a 5K run. The contests began at 8 am and by 3 pm Valencia was pronounced the Grand Champion…the neighborhood that had swept in almost all categories. And in the process, my husband, Dane, and I managed to snag a second place for Valencia at golf. Second overall was the New Haven neighborhood, followed closely by Charleston Court. Plaques were awarded in Downtown Abacoa amid live music and delicious munchies (served up as a Taste of Abacoa). Clearly a good time was had by all in this first annual Battle of the Neighborhoods. Possibly the only battle in history to foster a real sense of community!