The House Found Us

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Stattman Omphoto 8

Rooms like this cozy nook connected to the kitchen and family room demonstrate Grosshans’ commitment to designing a home that is as livable as it is sophisticated.

Whenever Beth Grosshans heard her husband, Dennis Stattman, mention the possibility of living in Florida, she didn’t pay much attention. After all, there was no way two former Midwesterners who had met years ago while watching their respective 9-year-old sons play soccer on a field in Princeton, New Jersey, would ever own a home in the Sunshine State. It was too crowded, too hot, too humid, and then there were all those hurricanes. Definitely not for her.

“I admit I had a stereotypical perception of Florida. It was a place I never wanted to live,” Grosshans says, wrinkling her nose. “But Dennis kept saying Florida is in our future, and he continued researching available properties on the internet.”

When Stattman got a call from a representative of Concierge Auctions alerting him to a Mediterranean-inspired two-story, six-bedroom, nine-bath oceanside estate in Vero Beach, he told his wife they should check it out.

“I went along with Dennis, not thinking it would turn out to be anything we would seriously consider,” she muses. “Neither one of us had ever been to Vero Beach, so we had no idea what it was like.”

They were about to find out.

“We flew to Palm Beach, where we stayed overnight, and early the next morning as we drove north I noticed there was less traffic, and when we got to Vero and crossed over the bridge to the barrier island there were no high-rises blocking the view of the ocean,” says Grosshans, recalling the route that led them to their destination, where they were greeted by Clark French, who represented Concierge Auctions at the time.

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