World travelers James and Bonnie Seitz say their custom-built home in Palm Island Plantation is a kind of travelogue, incorporating elements of their previous homes and architectural influences from Italy and the American Southwest.
From the outside, the 4,040-square-foot house adheres beautifully to the British West Indies style the subdivision is known for, with the flipped-up roof line, open eaves with carved rafter tails, verandas and railed balconies that characterize island architecture. But inside there is a wealth of fine details and special features that reflect the couple’s travels and interests, which include underwater photography and wine collecting.
“One of the best features of the home is the amazing attention to detail,” says Debbie Bell of Norris and Company Real Estate, who listed the 4-bedroom, 5.5-bath house for $1,395,000. “You don’t get this kind of detail in a spec home. For the price, this house offers so much.”
“We have been to Italy 10 or 12 times,” says James, a retired senior IBM executive who was chairman of the Harbor Branch Foundation Board of Directors for six years after arriving in Vero, helping manage the transition that took place as the famed oceanographic institute was absorbed into Florida Atlantic University. “We love the art and architecture and the wine and food.”
The home’s southwestern DNA stems from six years the couple spent in Scottsdale, AZ, before coming to Vero and is primarily expressed in the structure of the house, which is arranged around a lovely private courtyard that all the main rooms on the first floor open into and the second-floor bedrooms overlook.
“There are a lot of courtyard homes in Scottsdale,” James says.
The courtyard style is as classic as styles come, dating back more than 8,000 years in the Middle East and found all around the world.
“Courtyards originally were for fortification and defense,” James says. The style is also well suited to hot climates like that found in Mexico and the desert southwest. Arranged around a central open space, these homes are only one room “thick” on any side, which allows breezes to circulate through the rooms and shaded courtyard, which usually includes a well or other water feature.
The water feature here is a sparkling swimming pool with a spa and waterfall that the couple’s four grandchildren got good use out of during a two-week visit last summer.
“I worry about the kids when they are in the pool,” says Bonnie, an accomplished painter and member of the Vero Beach Art Club. “But with the courtyard, I can keep an eye on them from any room.”
“Having that wonderful outside space that everything opens into is just the nicest thing,” says Bell.
High school sweethearts who graduated in the same class in their hometown in New York, the Seitzs traveled extensively during James; time with IBM, where he was involved with international business operations.
“After a tough business meeting in Rome, we would go down to Tuscany and wander around the little towns and wineries,” James says. “We have a lot of wonderful memories of those small towns and villages.”
The Seitzs also have a 2,200-bottle refrigerated wine room in their home, one of many custom features, filled with vintages from Italy, California and vineyards in other far-flung parts of the world.
The couple retired to Scottsdale when James wound down his career with IBM and they had an even bigger wine cellar there.
That room could hold 4,400 bottles,” says James, who brokers wine as well as collecting and occasionally drinking it. “That was too much to keep track of, so we decided to have a smaller room here. We had a lot of friends in Scottsdale who helped us out at a lot of dinner parties [to reduce the stock]!”
The Seitzs left Arizona for Florida in 2001 because the desert air was too dry for Bonnie. They toured the state looking for a place they liked and ended up buying a house in Sandpointe after being assured that no hurricane had hit Vero Beach in more than 50 years.
A few years later came the twin traumas of Frances and Jeanne a few weeks apart in the fall of 2004. The second storm badly damaged the Seitz’s home and they decided they needed a more secure abode.
They hired Dennis Matherne of Matherne Construction to build their Palm Island Plantation home, making sure it could withstand future storms. The house has impact-resistant glass all around AND storm shutters, as well as whole house generator with a buried 1,000-gallon fuel tank for emergency power.
They made their home about 1,200 square feet bigger than the model it was based on, in part to give Bonnie a walk-in closet big enough to suit her.
“We told Dennis Matherne to push the house out to the buildable lot lines,” says James. “That closet is bigger than the room I lived in when I was in college.”
The couple was in Italy during part of the construction process, which was completed in 2006.
“We were looking at architectural drawing in little internet cafes to approve changes,” James says.
Everything turned out to perfection.
A wide paver drive leads from Palm Island Circle into the motor court, which is flanked on one side by a three-car garage with three separate doors that look like carriage house doors. A gate in a masonry wall softened by a hedge and purple flowering plants opens into a front courtyard that creates a sense of privacy and security before one enters the house.
Going in the solid wood front door, one enters a foyer with a powder room to the left and the base of the main staircase, which is done in maple, to the right.
The foyer opens into a handsome living room with a beamed ceiling and fireplace. There is a study on one side of the living room, with a full bath attached. Going the other way, beginning the circuit that surrounds the interior courtyard, one comes to the wine room, which is only about half full with 1,200 some bottles, a large dining room, then the gourmet cook’s kitchen.
“Bon has taken cooking classes all around the world,” says James. “She is a world-class cook.”
The study, living room, foyer, wine room, dining room and laundry room (which connects to the garage) are all in the front wing of the house. Making a right from the dining room, one enters the kitchen and then continues on to an 18-foot by 17-foot family room and then the oversize master suite with not one, but two, huge walk-in closets (one noticeably huger than the other).
Opposite the study and living room, forming the far side of the courtyard, is a self-contained casita with a 16-foot by 13-foot bedroom along with a mini-kitchen, closet and full bath that doubles as a pool bath.
The courtyard enclosed by the home’s three wings (landscaping that shields from view the wall of neighboring house completes the enclosure) contains the pool and spa, along with lots of seating in sunshine and beneath the shade of verandas. It also includes a deluxe summer kitchen where James performs barbeque duties and grills fish, a putting green and, just outside the kitchen, a small organic herb and vegetable garden.
All of the first-floor rooms have French doors that open into the central social space.
On the second floor are two en suite guest bedrooms that open via French doors onto an elegant and somewhat dramatic balcony that overlooks the pool. The deep, columned balcony provides those emerging from the bedrooms with a pretty view and makes the courtyard more picturesque for those swimming in or lounging by the pool.
The home’s interior is rich with elaborate woodwork, including built-ins and crown molding; there are coffered, beamed and vaulted ceilings; and plantation shutters and leaf-blade ceiling fans add to the West Indies ambiance.
Palm Island Plantation was developed by Westmark Development, beginning around 2001. There are condominium units, townhomes and carriage homes as well of single-family houses in the beautifully landscaped gated community. It will include approximately 130 homes at build-out and is about half built now.
Amenities include two scenic lakes, a deep-water marine complex with 12 slips on the Indian River lagoon, a fitness center and an ocean clubhouse with pool, cabanas and bar.
Bonnie says the community is very friendly, with an active social scene that includes monthly cocktail parties and luncheons, as well as trips and golf outings organized by the residents social committee.
“You can be just a busy as you want to here,” Bonnie says.” Everyone is very nice.”
