January 17, 2025 | Business, Featured, Real estate | Development

Ross Built builds generational home on Jewfish Key

The Jewfish Key home can only be accessed by boat or watercraft. – Joe Hendricks | Sun

LONGBOAT KEY – Ross Built Custom Homes recently completed the construction of a new waterfront home on Jewfish Key.

The Bradenton-based construction company is owned and operated by husband and wife, Greg and Lee Ross. On Dec. 13, Lee Ross provided a tour of the new home soon to be occupied by its owners. Completed after hurricanes Helene and Milton struck, the home will be showcased in Southern Living magazine in March.

“The premise of the article is homes that are built to last and we’re proud to be part of that,” Lee Ross said.

“We had an absolute blast building the home and we’re excited to turn it over to the client. I presented the house to the client yesterday. On the boat ride over here, he told his kids they can never sell this house. They need to pass it down to their kids. We built the house to last and they want it passed down through the generations,” she added.

Facing Sarasota Bay and Longboat Pass, the 3,000-square-foot home features four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms and comfortably sleeps 14 people with bunk beds in the third-story bedrooms and den.

It now serves as a second home for a millennial-aged Sarasota couple, along with their 11-year-old daughter, 9-year-old son and extended family members. The family first occupied their new second home during the Christmas holidays.

“The whole premise of this house is it’s their weekend getaway. When the owner travels, he sometimes travels with up to 17 family members, including sisters, brothers, aunts and cousins. The house is designed so everyone can roam free during the day and come inside and gather at night. That’s why it has so many sleeping spaces,” Ross said.

The homeowners provided the design documents created by Beacon Home Design principal designer, design architect, company founder and Manatee County native A.J. Barnard. Longtime Ross Built employee Rob Fehd served as the project supervisor. Ross served as the interior designer and Holmes Beach-based Original Sand Dollar retail store owner Julia Duytschaver provided the interior décor elements.

Located on a small, 12-parcel island in Sarasota Bay, off the northern tip of Longboat Key and the southern tip of Bradenton Beach, the home has a Longboat Key address. Florida Power and Light provides the electrical service but county water and sewage service is not available. An artesian well provides the fresh water and sewage discharges into a septic tank.

The only way to access the home and the shared dock on the other side of the island is by boat, or other watercraft. Construction materials were delivered by boat or barge and transported from the dock or the shoreline to the job site by Bobcats and skid steers. Construction workers and others associated with the project were transported to the job site in a boat captained by Tom Mora, with the South Coquina boat ramp serving as the main pickup point.

Construction took 18-20 months, including time lost to the hurricanes.

“A couple king tides and a couple hurricanes impacted the schedule,” Ross said.

Building a home struck by back-to-back hurricanes heightened Ross’s appreciation for the stricter building codes construction companies must follow to help mitigate hurricane and storm damage.

“We always thought those rules were annoying. But when we pulled up the day after Helene to check the damage, we found the rules worked because they saved the house,” Ross said. “The house performed beautifully. We had no water intrusion on the upper levels. We took on 3 feet of water on the ground level, but the water came and left and everything was fine.”

She noted the ground-level interior area features flow-through flood vents that allow intruding floodwater to naturally recede. Accessible in some areas by bay doors, the ground-level space can be used for storage, recreation and other activities but cannot be used as sleeping space/living space per FEMA regulations.

“We were very thoughtful about the materials we used down there,” Ross said. “The floor is made of pressure treated lumber and we had zero issues after that area filled with three feet of water. We had paperless drywall in there before Helene hit and it performed pretty well. But after Helene, we replaced it with cementitious board that can be pressure washed.”

The ground-level wood floor features an abstract fish head pattern created by a local 16-year-old artist who was recently accepted to a New York art school.

“There will be a lot of sand coming into that part of the house and we wanted it to look and wear over time like an old store from the 1920s,” Ross said.

Another local artist painted a horseshoe crab on the one of the ground-level foyer walls.

The home’s exterior is covered with fireproof Hardie fiber cement siding and all the doors and windows are hurricane impact rated.

The waterfront yard features a deck, a circular hot tub, a nautilus-shaped outdoor shower, a fire pit and a small private beach.

Interior design

Regarding the interior design, Ross said, “We were strong in our intention that geography matters, so we tried to embrace everything about living on an island. We focused on the materiality of sand, beachy colors, driftwood tones and hints of blue and green to represent the water.

“We wanted a coastal theme, but not one that’s cliché. We wanted a neutral pallet, as if you came out here and pulled things off the island and built the house. That was the intention with the types and colors of wood we used. There’s also a lot of white, like an old-fashioned beach house,” Ross said.

“On the second floor, we installed a tile floor that looks like beach sand. We focused on durable materials that don’t need a lot of maintenance so the kids can play and not worry about ruining the floors.”

The second-floor dining area features a custom-made table built of ebony wood selected by the family and obtained from a local supplier.

“A local artist put the three pieces of wood together. It weighs about 500 pounds and it took seven people to get it in and out of the boat and into the house,” Ross said.

The concrete kitchen countertop features embedded shells previously collected by the family. The kitchen features a General Electric induction range and a workstation sink.

Utilizing an open floor plan, a cozy living room sits next to the dining room.

“We wanted some interesting and notable ceiling detail and we found some wood floating around after the hurricane and built some abstract fishbones coming out of the living room ceiling,” Ross said.

“The client really wanted a connection with the outdoor spaces so we have a lot of deck space. We have bi-fold glass doors open up to the bay so it looks like you’re sitting on the water,” she said.

The second-story master bedroom features a modern four-post bed, a tile floor that resembles driftwood, a Capiz shell chandelier and black and white photos on the wall.

“With opalescent tile on the wall, the master bath is like being inside conch shell,” Ross said.

“The Original Sand Dollar provided the interior décor. Julia knocked it out of the park and she’s never done this before,” Ross said.

“It was a big honor to work with Lee Ross,” Duytschaver said. “She wanted someone local and authentic and the two of us worked well together. It’s a big house. It was a big undertaking and we worked on the project for more than a year. We looked at the property and met with the homeowners. I got a storage unit and started ordering things that were different than some of the stuff I carry in the store. Thankfully, it stayed safe during the hurricanes.

“Other than the furniture and light fixtures, we did all the accessories. We did the tabletops, the bedding, the bookshelves, the wall art, the black and white photographs and more,” Duytschaver said.

“We wanted it to look understated and homey, but with a higher-end feel,” Duytschaver said, noting the wife wanted the interior décor to represent the family and their desire to build a home on the island.
“Gillian Crago works with me and we did the install. Seeing the finished product was very fulfilling. Working with Lee was great. She’s super-talented and the house is really cool,” she added.

Supervisor’s sentiments

During that mid-December visit, Fehd and his crew were knocking out the final punch list items to complete the project. The initial site preparation included removing several Australian pines from the undeveloped two-acre lot.

Fehd said this is the first home he built on an island accessible by boat only.

“It requires a lot of coordination and it takes a little longer to build out here because of that – getting the materials over on the boat and barge and scheduling the different trade workers,” Fehd said. “It’s going to be sad to finish this house because I really enjoyed the process. I like getting on the boat in the morning and coming over here. Going through two hurricanes and being a small part of this process has been really gratifying. It’s a feather in the cap. Lee really made the house a home with her interior design details and the furnishings she picked out. Lee brought the house to life.”