Home (and hope) floats

At the $10 million range, it's usually not hard for a real estate agent to talk up one-of-a-kind features that will appeal to the rare buyer who can afford that kind of purchase. Homes at that price are stocked with those features.

But James Bates, a residential broker with Premier Sotheby's International Realty in Naples, can lay claim to something truly unique with one of his latest listings: a modern-designed contemporary home, built on top of more than 280 pilings, that appears to be floating. The 10,300-square-foot home, in the Naples neighborhood of Aqualane Shores, is poised on a double-sized lot, and cantilevered to float on its own private, spring-fed lake that covers some 200 feet. A home Bates calls an “architectural anomaly,” it's listed for $9,975,000.

“The home truly feels like it floats with water views glistening from every room,” Bates says in a statement. “An incredible feat of engineering and precise, painstaking design, the home encompasses the latest styles in modern international products.”

Bates helped develop the property, along with Lime International Developments, and Gerald Yurk of Architecture Artistica designed the home. The home has four-bedrooms, four full-bathrooms, an office and a powder room. It also offers visuals of the water in every room, while the living area has 30-foot ceilings with walls of glass to incorporate as much light as possible, the release adds.

Other features include:
• A 10-foot custom, linear double-sided gas fireplace with programmable LED crystal interior;
• Imported Italian trimless, magnetic doors, pivoting porcelain and aluminum front door and volcanic limestone floors;
• Imported European cabinetry and Spanish porcelain wall tiles;
• A 3,500-square-foot deck with 190-feet of frameless glass railing over the lake;
• A 50-foot lap pool
• An oversized, three-car garage designed to accommodate three lifts with a capacity for six vehicles.

Bates also scored a major luxury-marketing coup in early January, with an article in the Robb Report about the listing.