When the Bolands moved to Seaside, Florida, in July, they didn’t know they were doing something significant. They just knew they were coming home.
The new owners of 81 Seaside Avenue have been settling in the past few weeks into their 6-bed, 6.5-bath, 4,208-sq.-ft. home north of 30A, though they very nearly ended up in Seagrove. But, life had other plans for the California family.
“Seaside had been on my radar for a while,” said Jacqui Boland, who works in digital media. “All of the design magazines, the pictures, everything about the town was always so pretty.”
Truth be told, the Bolands have been big fans of the Emerald Coast and 30A for years. They visited for the first time in 2013 and were “gobsmacked,” in Jacqui’s words, about what they saw.
“The area is just so different than other Florida beach towns,” she offered. “You get here and you just can’t believe it’s real.”
Having lived on the West Coast for 20 years, Pete said they had been looking for a vacation home in the area, but never believed that a simple vacation could change the trajectory of their lives.
“We bought a lot in Seagrove and planned to build there,” said Pete, the chief marketing officer for a Fortune 500 company. “Then, we bought a rental house in 2014 and our trips to the area started increasing.”
That’s when the Bolands found 81 Seaside Avenue, built in 1994. A series of property e-alerts from Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty connected them to what would become their future home. To date in 2019, it is the flagship Seaside home sale, north of 30A. It is also the most appreciated resale in the community since 1998, setting the tone for the future market within the community.
Jacqui said the couple was drawn to the home’s whimsical tiled entryway and the high ceilings and expansive windows that contribute to tons of natural light inside.
“So much thought went into this house. We’d planned to build, but someone else did all the thinking for us,” she said, adding that the family may opt for some slight remodeling in the future. “We feel a responsibility, though, to the community that whatever we do has to feel special.”
The Bolands credited their Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty agents for their fresh approach, understanding of market data and knowledge of the community in helping them through the real estate journey from start to finish.
As a family, they’re getting to experience a different kind of life than the one they left behind in the Golden State. They walk to the beach now. They take advantage of Seaside’s farmer’s market. On date night, they bike to dinner. They welcome East Coast family as a central gathering spot. They don’t miss the California commute; both now work from home.
“You can just breathe here,” Pete said. “It’s fantastic; it really is.”
