Gimlets and Old Fashioneds, Bill Crouse’s favorite drinks, refuse to go out of style. But to mix them, he and his wife, Elaine, don’t dare use one of the collector cocktail shakers on display in their home. No, the couple's collection of 80- to 100-year-old cocktail shakers and period stemware aren’t there to work—it's there to pose, to please the eye. 

The eye candy doesn't stop there. The walls are decked out with 150 Art Deco posters—an impressive, extensive and pricey collection. At the moment, 60 of them are on display at an exhibit at the Poster House Museum in Manhattan. Appreciate them while you can, though: they’re not included in the sale of Crouses' home at 8250 Sanderling Road in Siesta Key's Sanderling Club, which would considerably bump up its $21 million listing price. 

As for the value of that poster collection, “it’s considered to be the most important collection by almost everyone who knows anything about the subject,” says Elaine, though she wouldn't share a hard number. Does the couple play favorites? “If I’m forced to choose, I could give you 50 favorites. But getting below that is tough,” Bill says. 

Even with some of the posters on loan, artistry is still everywhere throughout the house. The house itself is an award-winning piece of architecture. The Crouses bought 8250 Sanderling Road in 2014 for $8.85 million. Renowned local architect Guy Peterson, who designed it back in 1996, came back on to help the Crouses make it their own with a full interior remodel, right down to the plumbing and electric. Richard Geary of Naples led the interior design. Built by Michael K. Walker, it's free of fads, and the aesthetic denies tying it to any particular period.

Facing the Gulf of Mexico, the almost 7,800-square-foot home is a concrete pavilion with a glass curtain wall, composed of cubes that are placed within a raw concrete frame. When it was occupied by the previous owners, each frame was colored to identify different functions (the orange cube was the kids’ wing, for instance). Concrete bridges connect the “cubes” on the interior. The Crouses replaced the color with white and layers of concrete; cutouts and glass details mark the façade. A box out front hides a generator and is painted with a Piet Mondrian-inspired mural.

Inside, the home is brimming with art. The Crouses met on a blind date in New York City around 2000 and share a common interest in 1920s and ’30s art. Elaine gifted Bill with his first vintage cocktail shaker about 23 years ago for Christmas, and “I got carried away" collecting them, he says.

Elaine says she’s always been attracted to the simplicity of the Art Deco style and finds the period fascinating, as it's when luxury goods were made available to the average person for the first time. Bill likes the period's clean, geometric lines and bright colors. 

Bill, 81, is a venture capitalist and author of the books The Art Deco Posters: Rare and Iconic and The Grand Prix Automobile of Monaco Posters. He’s also the former worldwide president of New Jersey-based Ortho Diagnostics and vice president of Johnson & Johnson International.

Elaine, 71, a former marketing executive at AT&T and a trustee at the Ringling College of Art and Design and the All Star Children's Foundation.

Before buying this home, the couple lived on Casey Key for 10 years, in a home designed by architect Tim Seibert (an original member of the Sarasota School of Architecture), but wanted to scale up to make room for their growing art collection. Because of their charity work, they also needed the room for social functions. Indeed, the second-floor terrace can seat up to 150 people. 

What was top of mind was design. “We’re very keen on the Sarasota School of Architecture,” Elaine says, which informs Peterson’s work. After 44 years of working in architecture, Peterson says this home is “one of the most significant” he’s done. He still has the original drawings hung up in his home.

 "Paul Rudolph’s fingerprint is in Sanderling Club [he designed the cabanas there], and this was the first house I designed there. I wanted to pay homage to the Sarasota School of Architecture and others, like Luis Barragàn and Le Corbusier," Peterson says. "Although he wasn't a driving force, I’ve also always been a fan of Mondrian’s later work with lines and colors and mass and void. You could say the void of the home is the glass between the masses.” Local architect Leonardo Lunardi also worked on the Crouses' renovation, as did landscape architect John Wheeler. 

The foyer has a view of all the levels of the home, marrying glass, concrete, metal, teak and pure white. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame beach views. The custom kitchen pays homage to the teak accents throughout the home, and a landscaped rooftop terrace overlooks the grounds.

Elaine feels that modernist-style homes harmonize best with waterfront locations. Situated on a 1.54-acre site, this one has 150 feet of Gulf frontage and more than that along Heron Lagoon, creating a Gulf-to-lagoon estate. The Sanderling Club on Siesta Key also has a marina with boat docks.

Will downsizing affect the Crouses' art collection? Not at all—it will just move it around. The couple also collects Cubist oil paintings in their home in Pittsburgh, and the couple intends to mix and match those and their other art pieces once they sell this home and buy other homes in North Carolina and Sarasota. 

They won’t be compromising on their love of architecture, either. “We believe we have an opportunity to buy another Peterson-designed home closer to town,” Bill says.

So who's the ideal buyer for this unique address—especially in a real estate market that’s cooled since the buying craze of recent years. “This home is very specific,” says Joel Schemmel of Sotheby’s International Realty, who's representing the Crouses in the sale. “It will be someone who may not even know where Sarasota is but gravitates toward an architectural piece of art. This type of home can precede location.” 

“It's the sexiest listing I've had,” he adds.

Interested? Contact Joel Schemmel of Sotheby's International Realty at (941) 587-4894.