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How Did We Do?

By Robert Plunket April 16, 2008

How our two houses fared, plus rethinking Spanish Med.

By Robert Plunket

Well, the auction is history. It wasn’t too bad. Lots of energy, lots of bidding. But most important—how did our two houses do?

2958 Bay Street

First of all, the mid-century modern on Bay Street. We said it would be a good buy at anything under $170,000. Well, it went for $160,000. Right on the nose.

1644 Dolphin Lane

Next, the top-of-the-line town house in Laurel Park. The official asking price was $1,495,000, but I had heard it had lower asking prices at various times in its career. Anyway, it was the star of the show. People were bidding like crazy and it finally went for $926,000. With the buyers’ premium of 10 percent, that would push the final price over a million. This is an excellent price, much higher than the $800,000 I suggested, and similar to what it might have sold for without an auction. I don’t know what this proves about the market, but it does show there is a relatively strong demand for new construction downtown that is special and unique. Maybe now some of the other Laurel Park houses will start to move—there are a lot of them

OK, forget about the auction. Let’s move on. Did you ever stop to think what one of those million-dollar Spanish Meds in one of our many gated communities would look like if it wasn’t all gussied up like the set of an Italian opera? They are great houses in terms of space, proportion, ceiling height, layout—they’re just so numbingly similar that they don’t make much of an impression anymore.

7861 Wilton Crescent Circle

That’s why you’ve got to see 7861 Wilton Crescent Circle in University Park. A designer named Robert McNichols got hold of it and gutted the inside and put in an interior that looks like SoHo meets South Beach—part cutting-edge urban, part tropical glamour. He took out walls, created a hip pool bar and kitchen and put in special finishes everywhere. The living areas have Portuguese tile that looks like polished glass, the bedrooms have black ebony floors, and the master bath is the sleekest in town.

Black ebony floors and Portuguese tile make this home disctinctive.

This house really is something new and different, and shows just how cool a Spanish Med can become given the right attitude. It has 2,500 square feet, three bedrooms, three baths, and faces the golf course. It’s $849,000, down from $1.1 million. McNichols is selling it himself: 504-8152.

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