- November 5, 2024
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The recent record-breaking sale of a condominium unit at a residential and resort project on Longboat Key marks the start of a new era for a property that has a long history many weren’t thrilled to move on from.
The property is the $800 million The St. Regis Longboat Key. The sale was of a nearly 11,000-square-foot unit acquired for $21.24 million by a Pennsylvania couple. (Property records show the buyer is an LLC in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, northwest of Philadelphia. No other information on the buyer was publicly available.)
The resort and its residential component sit on the site of the former Colony Beach & Tennis Resort, which closed about 14 years ago and was once at, or near, the heart of the barrier island.
“I don't think there are many sites in the state that have the rich history that the St Regis property — I keep wanting to call it the Colony Beach property — does,” says Michael Saunders founder of the real estate firm Michael Saunders & Co., one of the most prominent agencies in the region.
“But I think that the richness of the history of it also makes an incredible story.”
Saunders’ firm has the exclusive listing for The Residences at The St. Regis Longboat Key and oversaw the sale of the 10,887-square-foot luxury waterfront condominium.
The condominium itself is actually two units in the St. Regis — Armand 201 and Armand 202 — that were combined to create the single six-bedroom, seven-full and two half bathroom waterfront apartment.
The unit’s exterior includes 7,500 square feet of open space with an extended terrace and a personal glass-front plunge pool with an unobstructed view of the Gulf of Mexico.
The buyer “wanted something unique,” she says.
“What they wanted was a palatial home on the beach…So they created this space where, truly, they had a home on the beach with all the services of a five-star resort.”
The property, which includes the recently opened resort and residences, was built on the site where the famed club stood for decades before it fell into a morass of lawsuits, public spats and disrepair. It was eventually taken over by the Unicorp National Development, an Orlando development firm.
The lineage traces back to 1954 when The Colony opened. The resort originally had more of an emphasis on golf and had a nine-hole pitch and putting green before shifting its focus to tennis about a decade later.
In 1972, Dr. Murray “Murf” Klauber bought the club — about four years after moving to Longboat Key. His goal was to make it the first “tennis-centric resort” in the United States.
Over the years it won plenty of accolades, along with support from visitors and locals; at one point it was named the No. 1 tennis resort in the U.S. by Tennis magazine for eight consecutive years.
Peter Bodo, the legendary tennis writer, waxed poetic about the club’s past in a 2017 story in the magazine, calling it “the grand dame of vacation destinations for devoted tennis players.”
It didn’t have the glitz of Los Angeles’ La Costa with head coach Pancho Segura nor the size and scale of Sea Pines Plantation on Hilton Head, South Carolina, with Stan Smith, Bodo wrote.
“What The Colony had was street cred with no-nonsense tennis players. It was authentic. It had a vibe, one that developed organically, not out of some MBA’s data-driven business plan.”
Klauber eventually came up with a concept where people bought real estate in the club, giving them security but limiting when they could use the property for 28 days each year.
That, Saunders says, “led to a lot of problems at the end.”
Trouble began in 2004 when the property owners rejected three assessments within a two-year span. Then, about two years later, board members audited The Colony and stopped paying operational expenses after disagreeing with Klauber over who was responsible for paying $10.6 million worth of repairs and improvements.
In 2009, Bank of America filed a foreclosure lawsuit against Klauber and seven of his corporations.
Legal battles led to The Colony’s closing in 2010. The abandoned resort fell into disrepair.
Saunders says it was a matter of Klauber wanting to do what needed to be done and the owners wanting to go in another direction. (Klauber died in 2018.)
“There were needs for renovations as the property aged, needs for infrastructure work,” she says. “And then the owners began not to agree with how you proceeded with it, and they and Murf, over time, had a falling out.”
Eventually, Unicorp bought the property and began the arduous 10-year process of converting it into the St. Regis. In 2021, an agreement was reached to terminate a condominium association between Unicorp, Colony Beach & Tennis Club Association Inc. and former unit owners.
The Sarasota Observer, sister paper of the Business Observer, citing court records, reported at the time that Unicorp paid $370,852 for beachfront units and $270,852 for mid-rise units. In total, Unicorp paid $18.5 million for the units.
Along with the internal wrangling, there was community backlash that required multiple town meetings, traffic studies and long conversations about what the resort property would, could and should look like.
“There were the naysayers of course,” Saunders says.
“The Colony was much beloved. Everyone loved The Colony. No one wanted to see it go. But it had finished its natural life. It had provided years of joy. But it was time to go. It was tired.”
Today, The St. Regis is a luxury development on 17.6 acres. In all, it has 168 hotel rooms, 69 residential units, a ballroom, spa, two restaurants, a beach grill and three bars, as well as a 4-acre saltwater lagoon.
The residences, which are already sold out, come with a private pool, spa and beach access as well as concierge and butler service.
Saunders plans to open an office on the property.
As for the sale of the condo unit, it is the top condominium sale ever in Sarasota County and puts it in line with two of the biggest home sales with similar price tags, according to a recent Multiple Listing Service report.
And while the condo’s sale price is eye popping, Saunders says it’s just the beginning of what the buyer will spend on personalizing the unit.
It’s also just the beginning for sales to be recorded at St. Regis.
According to the firm, it is one of several closings that will “ultimately total nearly a half billion dollars in real estate transactions in Sarasota County.”
Carter Weinhofer contributed to this report.
