As waterfront neighborhoods go, Ballentine Manor Estates is unpretentious.
With five avenues that run from U.S. 41 to Longbay Boulevard, across from Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, it dates to the 1920s, with a mostly modest mix of homes behind commercial properties along Tamiami Trail.
“It has a little bit of everything,” said Ann Howard, who, with her husband, David, a professional actor, has lived on Suwanee Avenue there since 1998.
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Ballentine also has a quiet dignity.
Closer to the Trail, the houses are nondescript, for the most part. Some of them, including at least one duplex, border nonresidential properties — a discount beverage store, a storage facility, a Christian Science church — along U.S. 41.
Closer to the bay, the houses are larger and well landscaped and maintained. Some are original, with yards punctuated with old post lights. Some have been remodeled, or replaced with large new houses. Some within the airport’s noise footprint, such as the Howard house, have been retrofitted with attic insulation and soundproof doors and windows, courtesy of the airport’s noise-abatement program.
“It makes a difference,” said Howard. “We can hear ourselves talk, and nothing rattles anymore.”
Then there is the house, one of the region’s architectural crown jewels. At 8011 Longbay Blvd., it is one of architect Guy Peterson’s most famous works: the Theisen Residence, named for its first owner.
“She was only here three weeks a year,” Howard said.
This 1998 house at 8011 Longbay Blvd. in Ballentine Manor Estates, southern Manatee County, is listed for sale at $ 4.2 million through Michael Saunders & Co. Designed by renowned architect Guy Peterson, it has six bedrooms and 10 baths in 9,700 square feet. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 8-19-2013.
It is the only house for sale in the 110-home neighborhood. Michele Burnett, who describes it as a house for “the connoisseur who enjoys living in a piece of art,” has the listing at $4.2 million. It once was listed at $6 million.
“I will be surprised if they get it,” Howard said, “only from the standpoint that it is a lovely house in the wrong area.”
On the opposite corner, at 312 Hernando Ave., is a 5,000-square-foot ranch house, built in 1972, on a half-acre that sold in March 2012 for $699,000.
Also dating to 1972, a modest 2,100-footer two doors north of the Theisen House sold in January 2013 at $462,500.
Gleaming white, with blue-tinted windows and dramatic modernist geometry, the 9,700-square-foot Theisen House was built in 1998 but still looks new. It overlooks the widest expanse of Sarasota Bay. Not many waterfront mansions have a road that separates them from the waterfront. This one does, but the pavement is hardly noticeable. Longbay Boulevard is lightly traveled, and the landscaping on both sides of the street is nearly flawless.
“One of the joys of living in Ballentine is that most people don’t even know we are there,” Howard said. “We don’t get through-traffic because there is no place to go unless you live there. It’s very quiet.”
Each Longbay house has green space on the bay side of the street, most with docks and most marked “private property.”
Longbay Boulevard and Sarasota Bay in Ballentine Manor Estates, southern Manatee County. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 8-19-2013.
But 75 feet of bayfront at the end of each avenue — Braden, Hernando, Suwanee, Somerset and Bernard — may be used by neighborhood residents for enjoying the view, said Howard, a member of the board of directors of the Whitfield Ballentine Manor Association.
“And we do,” she added. “Fourth of July, we have a fantastic view of everything from Bradenton to Venice, on a clear night. We are neighbor-oriented. We know everybody from dog-walking time on Longbay.”
Ballentine Manor Estates has some large and impressive oak trees and many more wide-trunked pines.
With a construction boom starting in 1950, the neighborhood must have been popular with servicemen who had trained at the airport, then the Sarasota Army Airfield, during World War II. Flying over Ballentine Manor Estates, some may have even ditched fighter planes in the bay.
The neighborhood was the dream of Frederick Ballentine, a New Jersey real estate broker who was hoping to cash in on the Florida Land Boom of the 1920s. He bought 119 acres south of Whitfield Estates in 1925. He intended Longbay Boulevard to provide views of the water to all residents, even if they lived on an inland lot. He required interior lots to have houses costing at least $7,500, and waterfront houses to cost at least $15,000. He wanted Mediterranean-influenced architecture.
A beautifully updated midcentury modern house in Ballentine Manor Estates. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 8-19-2013.
But the development was fairly remote at that time, and when the land boom went bust in 1926, development stopped. Ballentine held onto the property through two lean decades, with few houses built, and completed development in 1950. By then, Spanish-style houses were out of favor as the ranch house swept Florida’s postwar landscape.
The neighborhood is built-out except for a couple of empty lots, one of which is for sale at $100,000.
“We had some tough times with foreclosures when the bubble burst,” Howard said.
The neighborhood is included in Manatee County’s Whitfield Overlay District, the rules of which regard vehicle parking (restricted vehicles must be stored in carports or garages), fences and hedges (prohibited in front yards), front-yard setbacks (40 feet), minimum house size (1,400 square feet) and accessory structures (storage buildings are banned).
This house on Hernando Avenue dates to 1929, making it one of the oldest in Ballentine Manor Estates. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 8-19-2013.
Although the neighborhood is in Manatee County, the properties have Sarasota mailing addresses.
Membership in the Whitfield Ballentine Manor Association is voluntary, with dues of just $25 a year.
“We have meetings every other month,” said Howard, “with a speaker on something pertinent — how to stage your house if you are going to sell; water problems; how to fight prostitution on 41. When you live here, you realize what a problem it is.”
She tells the story of a male neighbor, closer to the Trail, who was watering his front lawn when he was propositioned by a “working woman.”
“He couldn’t believe it,” Howard said. “And his wife was in the kitchen, looking out the window.”
