The first residents of Sandy Lane will move into their new house next month, a little less than a year after developer Dolf Kahle and builder Vic Lombardi got final plat approval and started construction on the one-street subdivision on the ocean side of A1A south of Castaway Cove.
That accomplishment is compounded by the fact five of the planned nine multimillion-dollar single-family residences in the seaside neighborhood are under construction. One of those is a spec house Lombardi is putting up; the others have been sold to families that will call Sandy Lane home.
“We only have four lots left,” says Kahle, a broker associate at Premier Estate Properties and former board member at St. Edwards whose family has been developing property in Vero Beach for more than 20 years.
“Sandy Lane has been a huge success from day one,” says co-listing agent Cindy O’Dare, also a broker associate at Premier. “You’ve got the best team in town from the architect to the builder to the developer, and the neighborhood is shaping up with the nicest people, too.
“The homes have private deeded beach access on one of Vero’s deepest accreting beaches and the landscape architect has done an outstanding job so far. As soon as you drive through the gate you know you’ve entered a very special place. I call it Gracewood Lane meets Windsor.”
Gracewood Lane is another single-street south beach subdivision that was developed by Kahle’s family some years ago. All the homes there are on the south side of the street, leaving the north side for a deep landscape buffer that separates the neighborhood from adjacent houses and creates a semi-rural ambiance, a design feature Kahle borrowed for Sandy Lane.
“Building that way allows all the homes to have southern exposure, which is a great thing to design around, from a landscape and lighting perspective,” Kahle says.
The Windsor influence appears in Sandy Lane’s carefully-crafted West Indies-style architecture. Scott Layne and David Moulton, partners at Moulton Layne, have done a number of projects in Windsor in that characteristic style, and they are designing the entire subdivision, giving it an architectural consistency that adds to its charm and value. Moulton likes it well enough that he bought one of the houses and will be moving in himself sometime in the not-to-distant future.
Quality of construction is a constant, too. Lombardi’s company, Waters Edge Estates, which is known on the island for fine craftsmanship and timely project completion, is the exclusive builder.
There is one oceanfront house in the subdivision – it was the first to be sold and is larger than the others – and eight other homes with approximately 3,600 square feet of air-conditioned living space and another 1,200 to 1,800 square feet under roof.
The concrete block homes will have open, innovative floor plans and high-end finishes encased in traditional Anglo-Caribbean architecture. Features include icynene insulation, mahogany entry doors, high-tech security systems, elaborate hardwood millwork, stone or hardwood floors in public areas and kitchens equipped with Subzero, Wolf and Bosch appliances. Two-car garages, swimming pools and extensive landscaping by Hayslip Landscape is included.
Pre-construction prices in the 5.3-acre development started around $1.7 million, but have crept up over the past year to the $2.2-$2.5 million, depending on the lot and floorplan a buyer selects.
“Every time we close, we have an incremental price increase,” Kahle says. “We have three floorplans for buyers to choose from, and each one of them has several variations. Buyers can also sit down with Moulton Layne and come up with their own plan with the same kind of architecture, but so far that hasn’t happened.
“People seem to like it that we have thought a lot of this through, and that the available plans fit in a defined price range.”
All sales are of lot/home packages, but most of the transactions are taking place in two parts, with the buyer closing on their lot with the developer and then getting their own construction financing to take advantage of current low interest rates. The builder receives a series of progress payments with the final one coming when a certificate of occupancy is issued by the county.
Kahle says the sales process has been quick in most cases. “Our most recent buyer first saw Sandy Lane in February, signed a contract in March, and by April we were applying for the building permit.”
So far, all the buyers have been local in some sense, either fulltime residents or people who have spent winters here for years.
Kahle says locals appreciate the subdivision’s location, close to St. Edward’s School, The Moorings Yacht and Country Club, Quail Valley River Club, shops and restaurants on Ocean Drive and the Alma Lee Loy Bridge to the mainland.
“It is a beautiful development,” says Marsha Sherry, broker at The Moorings Realty Sales Co., whose agents close many of the transactions south of the 17th Street Causeway. “They are doing a fantastic job and I am charmed by the fact Dolf named the subdivision after his mother, whose name is Sandy.”
Kahle freely admits to the sentimental gesture but says the subdivision’s name also has other connotations.
“It evokes the Barbados resort with the same name that many people in Vero have fond memories of, and the word lane conveys, I don’t know, a different feeling than road or street, something a little more casual and calmer. And, of course, the street leads to the literal sandy lane that goes down to the beach.”
The property where Kahle is building his elegant, easy-going neighborhood was a single-family horse property up until 2004. After being damaged by hurricanes Francis and Jeanne, two homes and two barns on the property sat empty for years, sometimes used as illicit party spots by island teenagers.
Kahle bought the overgrown tract for $3.9 million in late 2014 and spent two years getting permits, clearing the property and installing infrastructure before starting construction in June 2016.
He expects to be sold out next season and to complete the final house within two years.
