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A home and 43 parcels in the waterfront Tarpon Springs community are auctioned cheaply, relatively speaking. The owner wants to redirect his efforts.
By BRYAN GILMER
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 15, 2000
TARPON SPRINGS -- How much would you expect to pay for a 21-room mansion overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, with a 1,100-bottle wine cellar, marble floors, an elevator and other similar amenities?
Perhaps $3-million? Maybe $2-million?
No. As James W. Doyle of Palm Harbor proved Saturday, such a home can be had through a special, limited-time offer for the value price of just $999,750.
"It was sold for just $250 short of a million," owner John Hill said with a chuckle on Monday.
Naturally, the home was not available in any store -- or from any real estate agent. It was one of 44 pieces of real estate in the Harbour Watch subdivision that Hill sold at auction Saturday.
The mansion is where Hill and his wife, Sheryl, live. The other 43 lots are vacant ones that Hill bought as an investment.
A professional crew sold all the property at absolute auction price, meaning the highest bidder was able to buy each one, no matter how low his or her bid. Total proceeds from the auction: about $3.26-million.
One buyer was so pleased at offering the winning bid for a parcel that he or she jumped into the pool at the mansion afterward, Hill said. He declined to identify the giddy bidder.
Hill said he wanted to unload his real estate holdings to focus his attention on starting a venture capital firm in Tampa with some business partners. Hyde Park Capital Partners will bankroll Internet startup companies, he said.
County property records show Hill may have spent nearly $3-million on the 60 empty lots when he bought them from Fairfield Communities, the subdivision's original developer, and other owners in 1998. He already owned the mansion at that time.
"On the whole, I came out well" financially, Hill said, not elaborating. "The most important thing was to move me out of that real estate."
Well, literally.
Hill may have owned a quarter of the lots in Harbour Watch last week, but after the real estate closings within 30 days, he and his wife will have to skedaddle.
They'll search for a new place in Tampa's Hyde Park neighborhood near the new partnership's offices, Hill said.