In most of Sarasota’s high-end real estate, you’ll feel a little like Citizen Kane, rattling around in a mansion that’s much too big for you and your opera-singing mistress. This home on Siesta Key is a happy exception. It’s big, all right (almost 10,000 square feet), but the feeling is intimate rather than overwhelming. Imagine a villa on the Italian Riviera. Lots of different levels and views, with a gorgeous pool complete with a waterfall and a swim-in grotto.

Everywhere are nooks and crannies that verge on the hedonistic. The home theater has a wonderful twist—a queen-size fur-covered bed. (It also contains a giant hookah, but I’m assuming that is for decorative purposes.)

With five bedrooms (including a separate guest suite that’s right on the water), there’s plenty of room for a family. The home is set on more than an acre and has all the extras you’d expect—elevator, roof deck, billiard room—plus some that will surprise. Be sure to check out the backlit onyx counters.

In Sarasota you buy for the view, and this is one of the best: over the turquoise waters of Big Pass to the pines of South Lido. There’s a gnarled oak tree down by your own private beach, and at sunset its limbs delicately etch the pink sky in a visual demonstration of purple prose. Puccini is alive and well on Siesta Key.

4011 Shell Road. $12.9 million.

Contact Joel Schemmel at Signature Sotheby’s, (941) 308-6497.

Read Bob Plunket’s “Real Estate Junkie” blog.