Australian-born retired pilot Keith Gordon and Betty Gordon – owners of the featured Kingswood Estates home – met in Tahiti while Betty was working for Pan American Airlines. Married for 28 years last week, they traveled the world while he worked as a pilot with Qantas and Japan Airlines. Now, with Keith’s two sons and a granddaughter, Ruby Rose, living in Australia, the couple want a smaller place where they can turn the key and get on a plane any time they choose.
They have enjoyed living in their Vero home for 15 years as Betty Gordon ran her business, Diamond Travel, and Keith Gordon taught ground school at Flight Safety. His love of aviation will be a benefit to the next homeowner, since he added a third bay to the garage with air conditioning and a workshop so he could work on his experimental aircraft; he also enlarged the home office to house his collection.
“That is what I call my husband’s aviation museum,” Betty Gordon said. “It is filled with Experimental Aviation Association (EAA) books and his memorabilia from when he worked with Qantas.”
The Gordons’ friendships with their neighbors, co-workers and the EAA has kept the spacious 2,435-square-foot home filled with guests.
“We picked the house because we love to entertain and in fact we have had as many as 45 people here for a sit-down dinner,” Betty Gordon said. “We hold the annual Christmas party here for the EAA and we can all be together and not broken up in different rooms. It is such a great layout for entertaining, the way it flows out to the pool is so perfect.”
The first two rooms as you enter are the formal dining and living rooms which have wide sliding doors across the back leading to the gorgeous screened pool and patio. The soaring volume ceilings, tall mirrored wall and the expansive sliders promote an open flow throughout.
“I hate to turn on lights in the daytime and here I never have to turn on any lighting until the evening because it is so airy and bright.”
Most of the house surrounds the pool area with access through sliders and a cabana bathroom exit. Diagonal from the living and dining room is the family room, breakfast nook and the kitchen, which is separated by glass French doors.
“It is nice to sometimes separate the two areas for privacy if you want to entertain in one half and watch television in the other.”
The bright kitchen, which is open to the family room, offers a view of the pool, newer appliances, a desktop area, wide countertops and tons of storage space.
The split plan works wonderfully when visitors are staying over since the master suite is to the right of the living areas and the other three bedrooms on the opposite side.
Two of the bedrooms have connecting French doors and are located next to the cabana bath allowing easy access to the pool. The Gordons’ guests have stayed in the connecting bedrooms with the back room used as a sitting room.
The master suite contains a huge bathroom next to a spacious walk-in closet, volume ceilings and a slider that gives access to the sparkling pool.
“We can just step out to the patio and jump in the pool,” said Betty Gordon. A retractable awning keeps the pool cool in the daytime and the lighting beneath two sheer waterfalls adds ambience to the pool at night.
An economical addition is the solar heating system they purchased for the pool, spa and water heater.
“When the salesman came here to sell us the system, he promised that it would save us $70-$80 per month. I said, ‘yeah, right’ but it really does save us that much. Our electric bills are very reasonable.”
Having lived in California before moving to Vero Beach, the Gordons have always been near the ocean, so when choosing a home in the Sunshine State they discovered Vero’s coastal charm.
“To me, this home is just Florida,” Betty Gordon adds. “We picked Vero Beach because it is an aviation town but we can still be at the beach in minutes. In fact, practically everything we need we can walk to in under a mile – it is the most convenient location.”
The house sits on an oversize lot on a cul de sac so there is not a lot of traffic and the landscape adds privacy around its huge backyard, where a family could spread out to play.
“We are also just steps to the community gazebo, tennis court and basketball hoop. Behind that is a lake where people sit on the dock and fish. I am not sure what kind of fish are in there but the little kids come by and ask for bread to throw in to feed them.”
The Gordons say it is the neighbors in Kingwood Estates that make them sorry to say goodbye, just as much as their attachment to the bright and airy home where they have lived for a decade and a half. They say it is the community – in every sense of that word – that they will remember forever.
“One thing about this neighborhood is that when we had to call 911 one time, all the neighbors came over to see if there was anything they could do. You know how they say you can pick your house but you can’t pick your neighbors? Well, we lucked up when it comes to neighbors, we got the best ones you could ever ask for,” said Betty Gordon.
If you would like to visit this friendly neighborhood to view this spacious home listed at $385,000, contact Norris and Company Real Estate agents Erika Zeck, 772-532-3423 or Gretchen Hanson, 772-713-6450.
