Longboat Key's Ohana sells for $17.5 million

A north Longboat Key home with a name that evokes tropical paradise sold in early November for $17.5 million.

Ohana, a beachside estate built in a Polynesian style in the 6600 block of Gulf of Mexico Drive, was sold to John W. Wise and Kimberly Jo Wise as trustees of the Wise Family Trust, according to the property deed filed with the Manatee County Clerk of Court. The deal closed on Nov. 8, Manatee County court records show.

The property listed for sale at $20 million, according to real estate records and spent nine days on the market. Previously it sold in May 2024 for $19.75 million, then a record. The sale eclipsed that high-water mark last summer of Serenissima, a $30.3 million property behind the gates of the Longboat Key Club. 

Reid Murphy of Developers Realty LBK, Inc. handled the Ohana sale for the owners and Deborah Lichter of Sarasota Beach to Bay, Inc. represented the buyers.

The name Ohana originally given to the 2.67-acre property is the island world for "family.'' 

Constructed in 2013, Sarasota architect Guy Peterson wanted to incorporate Polynesian influences. In 2014, the estate received praise and media attention for its design and construction team, including Peterson, builder Michael Walker and landscape designer Raymond Jungles.

The property features three pavilions, a tennis court, balconies, terraces, a pool, six bedrooms and seven-and-a-half bathrooms. It also boasts a seawall to protect its beachfront from erosion. The home has two elevators.

That seawall has proven to be a point of contention in recent years. As the sand in front of the structure slowly disappeared, walk-around access from one side of the property to the other along the beach also disappeared, often prompting passers by to use the seawall as a walkway and triggering trespassing complaints.

Within hours of the most recent transaction’s closing, similar complaints went out to Longboat Key police. 

In 2023, beach protesters urged the then-owners to “share the beach.’’

Owners in 2021 proposed the town pay between $880,000 and $1.3 million annually for public use as a path past the property. No such deal was struck, prompting the Ohana Hale Estate Land Trust to recommend two solutions, either wade through the breaking waves or walk around using a pair of public beach access points about a mile apart.