ANNA MARIA – Construction is well underway on Fedora Campbell’s new beachfront home at 105 Elm Ave.
Campell’s new home is being built in front of and seaward of the neighboring home at 107 Elm Ave. formerly owned by Wendy and Robert Jordan’s North Carolina-based WAJ Rustic Vacations LLC.
In April 2021, the Jordans purchased the $4 million beachfront home and property at 107 Elm that at the time offered a mostly unobstructed view of the beach and the Gulf of Mexico.
A few months later, after learning of Campbell’s plans to build a new beachfront home in front of their home, the Jordans launched a much-publicized, but ultimately unsuccessful, Preserve AMI opposition campaign that included a website and an online petition drive. The website and petition drive opposed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) ruling that allowed for Campbell’s new home to be built seaward of the Coastal Construction Control Line, on a property that currently had no direct street access to Elm Avenue because the street ended at 107 Elm.
The Preserve AMI campaign also included signs placed along the beach walkway that encouraged Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy to “do the right thing,” even though the mayor had no legal grounds to overrule the FDEP permitting decision unsuccessfully challenged by a group of neighboring property owners, who were later joined by the Jordans in the dispute.
In June 2022, Campbell and her attorney, Kevin Hennessy, addressed the Anna Maria City Commission while seeking a right-of-way use permit that would allow Elm Avenue to be extended to connect to Campbell’s property at Campbell’s expense. Hennessey noted Campbell’s property was platted in 1912 and purchased by her father in 1925. Campbell, a Bradenton resident, said she began visiting Anna Maria and that family’s vacant beachfront property when she was about 2 years old.
The following month, after further review by FDEP, the city commission approved the right-of-way use permit that later allowed for the issuance of the other city-issued building permits needed to construct the new beachfront home.
Around that same time, the Jordans put their house and property on the market. In December 2022, the Ohio-based Depalma Corporation Inc. bought the 107 Elm home and property for $4.15 million and it’s now being rented as a short-term vacation rental.
