Listing of the Day
Location Annapolis, Maryland
Price $14.5 million
This house may be over 100 years old, but it has had only two owners since being built in 1908 for wealthy industrialist Sydney Labrot, president of the Atlantic Creosote Company.
Visiting friends nearby, Labrot anchored up in Whitehall Bay in 1905, during an annual family summer cruise between homes in New Orleans and New York. So impressed was he with the views up and down Chesapeake Bay he bought the land. The idea was to build a home from which he could admire them all the time. What followed was a grand, symmetrical, red-brick mansion with large shuttered windows on 26 acres of land, with carefully tended gardens.
The home, known as Holly Beach Farm, was not sold until 1993. The buyers, Tom and Liz Munz, had no plans to move per se, but on the recommendation of friends decided just to take a look. They fell in love with it and put in an offer on the spot.
The couple, now in their 80s, have decided to sell. They are offering the public what agent Marc Fleisher, of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, said is an extremely rare opportunity to own a house with three-quarters of a mile of waterfront and private beach "when normally such a property might offer, at the most, 1,000 feet."
More:Cal Ripken Jr.’s Maryland Estate on the Market for $12.5 Million
Stats
The house is 11,000 square feet with eight bedrooms and seven bathrooms.
Design pedigree
When the Munz family bought the house it had about 30 rooms, in need of some TLC. They hired Bohl Architects and interior designer Arlene Critzos of Interior Concepts to completely renovate and alter spaces so that the only bit of the house that doesn’t look at the water now is the two-level foyer. They made sure the renovations were in keeping with the house's period features, however, adopting a European style.
Warnock Studios, a decorative painting company known for its work on renovations at the White House, added a trompe l’oeil garden wall to the grand stairway wall, inspired by the walls of a grand ballroom in an Italian palazzo. Built-in bookcases in the library were refinished in a mahogany faux bois, and the dining room painted an eggplant color with gilded stripes.
Talking point
The original owners had created a series of carefully designed gardens, which have been restored from old photos, including the pond garden, the perennial garden, the rose garden, the crabapple hillside garden, the woodland garden and the hydrangea garden.
A gazebo on the grounds was built by Labrot in 1936 as an anniversary present to his wife; it was actually a dovecote and the gift included 12 birds.
There’s a large white oak tree between the house and pool house, one of the oldest remaining such trees in Maryland.
More:Click to View a Virginia Mansion, Present and Past
Amenities
There’s a circular swimming pool and smart pool house that was renovated just two years ago.
Neighborhood notes
The estate is in a "sensational location," said Mr. Fleisher, "as long as you like privacy."
The house and grounds are on a peninsula bordered by Meredith Creek and Whitehall Bay, and all surrounding land is owned by the State of Maryland as a natural preserve where no development can take place. The only house that is visible across the water has been bought by the state to be used as a museum.
Yet Holly Beach Farm is only a 10-minute drive, or seven-minute boat ride, from the shops and restaurants of Maryland’s capital, Annapolis, and under an hour to Washington D.C. (Annapolis is a popular summer destination for D.C. politicos as a result.)
Agent: Marc Fleisher, TTR Sotheby’s International Realty
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