Pieces of the roof went flying as the big yellow demolition machine moved in. Masses of shingles, timber and pale pink insulation material crumpled together in one big monstrous gulp.

As the machine moved closer, with every swipe of its jaws, the oceanfront house slowly disappeared.

“We looked to remodel,” said owner Hilary Keefer, who watched the demolition of the house at 733 Ponte Vedra Blvd. in December.

“It just wasn’t flowing right.”

After she and her husband, Phil, hired an architect, they did what a lot of people in the Beaches area are doing these days.

They decided to tear down the existing home on the lot they’d purchased and build a larger, more modern one in its place.

The old one was about 5,000 square feet.

The new one, a Cape Cod-style mansion, will total 12,100 square feet, with multiple terraces, balconies, a three-car garage, six bedrooms, seven baths and seven fireplaces.

“It’s going to be a really nice house,” said Keefer, who said she has noticed several large houses going up along Ponte Vedra Boulevard recently.

She sees it as a trend.

“Because I think people want oceanfront” and not many empty lots are left, she said. “The smaller homes have been here for years. They either need updating, to be remodeled or to be taken down.”

Beaches builders, real estate agents and builder association officials agree that is happening, not just on Ponte Vedra Boulevard, but in other places around Ponte Vedra Beach and Jacksonville.

There are a lot of areas in the First Coast that are very desirable, said Jerry Linder, immediate past president of the Northeast Florida Builders Association.

In San Marco, Avondale, Riverside and Ponte Vedra Beach, sometimes “property far outweighs the value of the house that’s on it,” he said. “People want to live in those areas. But not in a home built in the ’40s, ’50s or ’60s that’s very outdated.”

Kim Martin-Fisher, a real estate agent with Ponte Vedra Club Realty who specializes in selling homes on Ponte Vedra Boulevard, agrees.

She said that is what’s happening “everywhere in old Ponte Vedra,” along the ocean and near the Ponte Vedra Inn and Club, where the best “premium” lots were purchased and built on first, decades ago.

Newer homes have modern conveniences as well as more energy-efficient heating and air-conditioning systems, plumbing and duct work, Martin-Fisher said.

For those who have the financial resources, it makes sense to buy a house for its lot because in this real estate market, “the high-end market continues to do very well,” she said.

Along Ponte Vedra Boulevard, that was evident this week.

From the boulevard’s southern end at Mickler’s Landing beach to the northern end at the Duval County line, construction workers were busy building new homes and renovating others on both sides of the road.

On the oceanfront, two doors north of Mickler’s Landing, a large house was under construction.

Just north, another home was being completely remodeled.

North of the Ponte Vedra Lodge and Club, the shell of a house was all that was left of a major reconstruction project.

In the 400 block, where a home that had been built in the early 1930s once stood, a cleared lot awaits a large modern mansion.

And closer to the Ponte Vedra Inn and Club, more large homes were in various stages of completion.

The Keefer lot sat leveled, waiting for permits before construction can begin.

Bill Lawson, vice president of 58 Builders, the Keefers’ builder, said that even though his company doesn’t cross the Intracoastal Waterway, they have “plenty of work.”

Keefer said she and her husband paid $4,175,000 for the property at 733 Ponte Vedra Blvd. and that their new house will cost more than $2 million.

The size of new houses being built depends in part on the size of the lot.

Historically, Ponte Vedra Boulevard was first developed near the Ponte Vedra Inn and Club.

Lots there at the northern part of the boulevard are, on average, about 100 feet wide.

Farther south, they widen to 150 feet, then closer to Mickler Landing, they average 200 feet.

Prices vary depending on location, size, elevation, view and proximity to public beach access paths, Martin-Fisher said.

She said properties closest to the Inn and Club are highly desirable and, despite being smaller, fetch premium prices.

Along the boulevard, she said, prices currently range from $3.7 million for a 100-foot-wide lot to $5.9 million for a 150-foot one.

The house that’s on the lot is sometimes a factor in the price; sometimes it’s a liability.

Real estate agent Elizabeth Hudgins, who specializes in oceanfront homes with Prudential Network Realty, said she advocates keeping older, charming houses standing whenever feasible structurally and economically.

But sometimes it’s not feasible.

She recently sold a home in the 300 block of the boulevard that was built in 1940 and had magnolia floors. The new owners wanted to keep those “priceless” floors, so they renovated rather than demolish.

The builder numbered the strips of the floors and put them back down in the same location when workers had finished.

“To me, that’s a wonderful way to go when you can,” Hudgins said.

But often, it costs more to renovate than level.

She said she and her husband know that firsthand.

They recently sold their own 50-year-old home across from the ocean.

No one wanted the house, so they tore the house down first and sold the empty lot.

The new owner didn’t have to make any decisions about whether to demolish or renovate.

“There’s a fine line between what needs to go and what needs to be restored,” Hudgins said.

Source:

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/021707/neS_8003039.shtml