Ingrid’s Secret Garden

Ingrid Biesaart found the house of her dreams. Or maybe the house found her. Her priorities were clear when she started house-hunting by herself in 2007. She wanted an old house with character, one already touched by the lives of others, a house that would feel like a home. Married for 35 years, she had lost her husband, Jerry, only two years earlier. After going through Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne together – and losing their home in Castaway Cove – she felt she “couldn’t risk being alone on the beach and having to evacuate ever, ever again.” So she started her search on the mainland and found just what she was looking for in Vero Beach’s historic McAnsh Park.

The first time she drove by the house, the 1940’s Spanish-style architecture captured her interest, and she knew she had to see the inside. The moment she walked through the door, the house itself captured her heart. “I felt like I’d been there before,” she says.

Read the entire article in the May 2013 issue