Longtime Sarasotans may remember Jerry Hente, who served two terms on the Sarasota County Commission in the 1980s. The next time you drive down Fruitville Road, which has become a highway and the main entrance to downtown, keep in mind that Hente was a champion of the project.
Homeowner Jerri Hente says she is conflicted and very emotional about selling the Glen Oaks Manor that home her father owned and she has lived in for many years. But, now that she is married and living on an alpaca farm in Venice, she knows it is time to sell. The two bedroom villa is on the market for $274,900. Glen Oaks Manor is a seven minute drive to downtown and 12 minutes to the airport. The community is pet friendly too. STAFF PHOTO / RACHEL S. O'HARA
Hente also was an accomplished professional photographer, earning national acclaim for his work.
When he died in 1999 at 64, his daughter took ownership of his longtime villa home — he was its original owner — in Glen Oaks Manor in Sarasota.
Now, after a goodbye lasting more than a decade, Jerri Hente is listing her villa for $274,900 through Scotty Ledford of Sarasota Bay Real Estate.
The two bedroom, two-bath unit is 1,750 square feet and has both a front-entrance covered patio and a private walled swimming pool at the back as well as an atrium with a skylight off the living room. The house includes a two-car garage in a community that is pet friendly. Glen Oaks Manor is a seven-minute drive to downtown Sarasota and twelve minutes from the airport.
Jerri Hente has called the place her second home for most of her life.
“My dad came to Sarasota from Missouri to live and to set up his photographic business in 1964, but he had been vacationing here with his family for years before that,” she said. “Apparently he knew as a youngster this was where he wanted to be.
“My parents were divorced, and I lived in Oklahoma with my mother. But every summer I would come to Sarasota to Glen Oaks Manor, and, as a teenager, I always had a summer job here. Usually, I’d bus tables at the Colony Beach Resort while the owner’s son, Michael Klauber, worked in the kitchen. I had a whole set of summertime friends here, and the second bedroom at Glen Oaks Manor was my other home all through college, and after, when I would come to visit dad.”
The exterior to Jerri Hentes 1,750-square-foot villa in Glen Oaks Manor that is on the market for $274,900. All the 197 units looks the same (and plain) from the outside but are surprisingly stylish inside. STAFF PHOTO / RACHEL S. O'HARA
After her father passed away and the villa became hers, Jerri got a transfer from her company in Jacksonville — she’s in mortgage banking — and moved to Glen Oaks Manor ful time. She had been traveling back and forth, caring for her father, after a stroke left him with only partial sight in one eye. She eventually connected her father with Lighthouse of the Blind and he became an advocate for the programs there, serving as a counselor.
As a new Glen Oaks Manor resident, Jerri became friendly with her neighbors, the designers Jonathan Slentz and Matt Overstreet. They updated and transformed the Hente residence from a bachelor pad into a chic home for a working woman. The designers redid the floors, installing Mexican saltillo tiles, and designed a modern kitchen. The duo added built-in mirrored bookcases to one end of the living room, put up crown molding and added deep baseboards. A new color scheme and new furniture were part of the redecorating plan too.
“Matt told me he was going to paint the living room leather-red and I said maybe not, but he did it anyway and it looked great,” she remembered about her deceased friend. “Jonathan did the kitchen, and he picked out all the fabrics for the upholstery. Every time those two men gave me a choice, I’d pick one and they would go with the other. After a while, I just agreed with whatever they said. Now, I’m glad.”
The large format photographs that are the backdrop for this living room seating area were taken by famed photographer Jerry Hente, who was the first resident of Glen Oaks Manor. Jerry Hente was not only an internationally acclaimed photographer, he was a two-term Sarasota County commissioner in the 1980s. The villa, which passed to his daughter, Jerri, is now on the market for $274,900. STAFF PHOTO / RACHEL S. O'HARA
The one thing both Jerri and her friends agreed upon was keeping the large-format color art photographs that are Jerry Hente’s art legacy. He decorated his home with his photographs of nature, famous architecture and city scenes.
In 1978, Jerry Hente was awarded the title “Best Photographer in U.S.” by the Professional Photographers of America, the largest and oldest professional association of its kind. He also had a Master Photographic Craftsman Degree, a distinction that only goes to a few hundred photographers worldwide. He was campaign photographer for both Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and he photographed sports celebrities and circus greats as they came through Sarasota. In 1992, he was president of the International Circus Festival and Parade.
From 1980 to 1988, Jerry Hente served two terms on the Sarasota County Commission. .Besides his yes vote on the widening of Fruitville Road, he voted no on acquiring the MacArthur Tract (known as the Carlton Reserve) as a water source.
Floors throughout the Jerri Hente villa at Glen Oaks Manor are Mexican saltillo tile in a glazed Old World finish. The residence also includes a covered atrium with a skylight. Remote control blinds close off the atrium when the homeowner wants a different look. There are 197 villa units in Glen Oaks Manor. The complex is pet friendly. This 1,750-square-foot, two-bedroom/two bath home is on the market for $274,900 through Scotty Ledford of Sarasota Bay Real Estate. Only one family has owned this villa. Glen Oaks Manor was built in the 1970s. STAFF PHOTO / RACHEL S. O'HARA
Glen Oaks Manor was developed starting in 1979, and the Jerry Hente bought his unit in December 1981, according to county records.
“His villa was always a place for entertaining friends. There was a pool table in what is my dining room, and, because he was a hunter and fisherman, there were mounted trophy heads around the place. And he used the laundry room for his home darkroom. There wasn’t a washer and dryer in that space until 1994.”
In 2004, Jerri Hente’s life changed dramatically. She married and moved to an alpaca farm south of Venice. Although she kept the Glen Oaks Manor home, thinking she would use it an occasional city getaway, she eventually made the drive to Sarasota less and less often.
“I finally rented out the villa because I didn’t want to let it go completely,” she said, “but now, I don’t want to be in the landlord business anymore. I’m forcing myself to detach, which is difficult because I’m a sentimental person.
“Jonathan Slentz has styled the rooms for showings and it looks bright and happy. I’ll take Dad’s big photographs with me when the villa sells, but for now they are on the walls for prospective buyers to see. They are part of the history of the villa, and depict a lot of Sarasota’s history, too.”
