Old Florida Meets Modern Luxury, Ocean Home Magazine features Seanest Villa

The Seanest Villa, a Bird Key Waterfront Estate in Traditional Florida Style, Featured in Ocean Home Magazine.

Along the sunlit curve of Florida’s Gulf Coast, where the horizon blurs between turquoise sea and sky, a new Bird Key waterfront estate rises—a masterful interpretation of traditional Florida vernacular architecture, reinvented for modern coastal living. Designed as both a sanctuary and a celebration of place, the custom waterfront home balances craftsmanship, color, and context. Sarasota’s iconic waterfront builder collaborated with a nationally recognized design team to create a home that feels both technically impressive and deeply connected to its surroundings.

“The client had been to the Panhandle and fell in love with the native-style architecture of Old Florida. I merged that style with the white concrete of St. Augustine, the state’s oldest city. It’s different from anything else in the area.” – architect Geoff Chick, AIA

Inspired by early 20th-century coastal estates and Florida Cracker style, the home embraces refined simplicity. Deep overhanging eaves, broad porches adorned in white, and expansive light-beckoning windows evoke a sense of regional nostalgia while performing a vital climatic function—shielding interiors from the subtropical sun and embracing cross-ventilation from the bay breezes. Additionally, the architect designed elevated terraces that satisfy Sarasota’s building codes while maximizing bay views. As a result, the home creates the serene sensation of standing on the deck of a boat surrounded by endless water and sky.

Old Florida Meets Modern Luxury: Inside a Stunning Bird Key Retreat

On the Florida barrier island of Bird Key, a new vacation home invites the outdoors in at every turn. The Ohio-based family purchased the property and replaced the existing house with a light-filled retreat for gathering and relaxation. The retreat now serves as a welcoming destination for their extended family, including numerous grandchildren. To create their dream house, the couple brought together a collaborative team led by Ricky Perrone, president of Sarasota-based Perrone Construction, that included the architectural firm Geoff Chick & Associates, Allyson Runnels Interiors, and Michael A. Gilkey landscape.

“The tiered terraces create an uninterrupted panorama of the bay – an ingenious composition that conjures the serene sensation of standing on the deck of a boat, surrounded by endless water and sky,” – Ricky Perrone, Perrone Construction

 

 

 

 

 

 

Superior Construction for Storm Resilience Along Florida’s Coast

The house is made of state-of-the-art durable materials, including fiber-cement Nichiha siding, which is moisture resistant and looks like natural wood, and Boral trim that’s weather resistant and easy to maintain. Meanwhile, the standing-seam aluminum roof incorporates discreet solar panels above the rear porch. The team crafted the intricate architectural elements from weather-resistant PVC to celebrate the heritage of traditional wood-frame architecture while improving resilience.

 

 

 

 

 

“The clients have a real connection to color, and they know color and wanted to incorporate it.” – Allyson Runnels, Interior Designer

Inspired by Florida’s Natural Palette

The design team drew inspiration for the home’s colors and floral patterns from a blouse the homeowner wore during one of the first meetings. (A pair of chairs in the living room is clad in a blue-green floral pattern.) The main living spaces—kitchen, dining room and living room—are in an open layout set against a wall of glass that’s softened by sheer floor-to-ceiling draperies. Their subtle stripe, a coral motif, conjures the beach, and a single painting, hung from brass chains, floats in space. “The drapes have lots of detail, but they don’t stop your eye,” Runnels says. “You still look past them to see the view of the palm trees and water.”

“The interior design embraces a vibrant Floridian spirit,” Perrone says. “It’s a kaleidoscope of celadon, seafoam, citrus and sun-washed blues balanced by crisp white millwork and coffered, limewashed pecky cypress ceilings.” At a party to celebrate the completion of the house, the owners invited the design teams to spend the night. “We hung out in the dipping pool after dinner and ate in the breakfast nook,” Chick says. “We don’t usually get the opportunity to live in the house.”