If you can find a pot of gold, this home is worth one. But beware of leprechauns because with its $25 million price tag, you'll need a lot of the stuff. 

This home is the highest-priced listing in Manatee County right now. Owners Angela and Rick Mikles, who built the three-level, 11,548 square-foot under-roof compound after tearing down the previous 2,500 square-foot ‘90s beach house in 2019, say they want to sell to simplify their lives and "recover from construction fatigue.

Sunset Dream, as the home has been coined, is located on  just under an acre on Sunset Lane, right on the water in Holmes Beach on Anna Maria Island. The five-bedroom, six-bathroom home took three years to build, and some of that was during the pandemic, which added hurdles and time to the already often-painful process of bottom-to-top construction.

Initially intended to be their forever home, the Mikles bought 104 Sunset Lane in 2012 for $1.8 million and stayed there on weekends while they lived in Tampa, which at the time was headquarters for Ideal Image, a national laser hair removal enterprise that Rick co-owned with Joseph Acebal.

Rick, an enthusiastic cook, has a cookbook of all his favorite recipes in the works. If he were to be pitted against Chef Bobby Flay, he says he'd prepare his tandoori shrimp tacos that would give him a good run. With two kitchens to work with outfitted with dolomite marble countertops, he has a kitted-out space to work in. Despite the home’s sprawling size, he says, “When you're in it, it feels very comfortable. It doesn't feel like a warehouse.”

To his point, one would rarely find a $40,000 Italian Menotti couch in a warehouse, or a $30,000 white Yamaha player piano. The piano is one of only two in the country and, as luck would have it, Rick found one in Sarasota. Both the couch and the piano, along with all the furnishings and wall art, come with the $25 million price tag. 

In fact, everything except Zoe, their white Devon Rex cat, is included. How she doesn't get lost in the home is a mystery, but “she finds us,” Angela says.

They call the home's style, “calm contemporary,” Rick says. "There's not a lot of noisy stuff. It's very calming. It's not extremely elegant or edgy or fun. It’s calm.” And with all the shades of gray and white, it’s a clean slate for a new buyer. 

Other notable design details: the clear, "corner-less" wrap-around glass windows frame 180-degree views of the Gulf of Mexico.

A media room features a solid smoked oak bar, a 155-inch television and hand-cut paulownia wood wall covering. And one of the home's six bathrooms includes “the party shower,” Rick says, “that’s big enough for three couples.”

The architect on the project was AJ of Beacon Home Design, Whitehead Construction led the building and Holly Logan of Sarasota took care of the interior design.

Sunset Dream is the grand finale of several properties Mikles has developed on Anna Maria Island, many with Rick's lifelong friend and business partner Acebal.

Acebal, along with Mikles, both former chiropractors, founded Ideal Image in 2001. Ten years later, in 2011, Steiner Leisure, a global provider of spa services and operations, bought the business for $175 million.

In 2016, Acebal sold 101 Palmetto Ave., also on the Gulf of Mexico, for $3.6 million. The home was built in 2015 as part of a three-home community and was developed by a corporate entity tied to Acebal and Mikles. In 2014, the two also developed and built a 7,568-square-foot home at 3475 Gulf of Mexico Drive on Longboat Key and sold it for $7 million in 2016.

Since 2017, Rick has been the chairman of the board for Znergy, an LED lighting products and energy management solutions company that supplies parts to RV manufacturers. 

But amid a general slowdown in a previously frenzied market, is the $25 million price tag realistic?

“I think to be on that level of net worth includes very few people to start with, but the biggest commodity is time. [Buyers] want to use a home now versus taking on a project,” says Charles Buky of Coldwell Banker Realty, who is leading the team representing the Mikles in the sale.

“The St. Regis sold out immediately, and the residences there cost more than $10 million," Buky continues. "There's not a lot of this type of product out there, and the type of buyer it will attract appreciates that and will pay for something they can use immediately."

Right now, other similar listings in Manatee County include one for $23 million at 811 N. Shore Drive and another for $22 million at 6201 Gulf of Mexico Drive.

The highest price fetched in Manatee County thus far is Acebal's home at 100 Beach Drive, which sold for $16 million. The second-highest sale is $13 million and one dollar at 6021 Gulf of Mexico Drive. We wrote about it in 2020 when, at the time, the all-cash deal was the highest residential real estate sale ever recorded in Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties.

So where to next for the Mikles and Zoe? Probably nearby. They have five other homes on the island. 

Interested? Contact Charles Buky at (941) 228-6086. The Coldwell Banker Realty team representing the sellers includes Jim Ptak, Taylor McFadden and Matt Huffman.