Charles and Anna Carlino’s Polynesian-style home on Avenue Au Soleil in Gulf Stream.
By Christine Davis
There are a few people in South Florida’s tropical paradise who live in literal Shangri-Las.
Take for example, Bruce and Muriel “Mert” Anderson, Charles and Anna Carlino, and most recently, Hillel Presser. No Mediterranean-style homes for them. All residents of Gulf Stream’s Place Au Soleil, they prefer architecture with a bit of an Asian flavor (think pagoda-like roofs with upturned edges), following the lead of Bob Reed, who developed the 50 acres in 1960.
“Bob never said why, but he liked that look,” Mert said. “From what I understand, he had different developers come in and build here, but he had control of the design of our home (at 960 Indigo Point), which he built for himself, and two others on Avenue Au Soleil.”
“Bob told me that those two were the original sales offices,” Bruce added. Reed’s aerial photograph hangs in their home, and shows the development as empty parcels save for the two Avenue Au Soleil homes.
Coming from a Colonial home in Morristown, N.J., the couple bought their waterfront property 20 years ago, Bruce explained. “Our Realtor told me, ‘I want you to see something I just came across. I’ll leave the keys and you bring Mert and a bottle of wine at sunset. It will be an easy sale.’
“The house was owned by Bob Reed and his wife, Bessie, who had already moved over to Harbour’s Edge (a senior living community in Delray Beach). It was empty and overgrown, but we made an offer.”
At first, Mert said, they were going to give it a more Colonial look — the house façade does have a section made of old brick reclaimed from a Kingston, Jamaica, jail — but they grew to like the Asian style and decided to stick with it. ‘We were ready for something different,” Mert, now a Gulf Stream town commissioner, explained.
The Carlinos stand near their meditation pool.
Charles and Anna Carlino bought their home at 2745 Avenue Au Soleil from Elden and Catherine Tetzlaff in 2007. “The design was more Japanese when we owned it,” Catherine Tetzlaff said. “The architect truly understood building for a tropical climate, and I always appreciated his vision.”
The Carlinos, though, love the Polynesian/Balinese style, and the house easily made the transition.
“The open-beamed ceiling in the living room is original,” Charles Carlino said. “The whole house in the front had sliding glass doors. We framed them in wood and added the dark shutters — that goes with the Balinese design. We put in Mexican tile floors and added bamboo shades out on the loggia.”
Carlino, a real estate investor and decorator who owns Lorimar Designs, has filled the house with wicker, rattan, leather, Asian antiques and exotic wood furniture. He’s added a garage and guesthouse, a shallow mediation pool and pavilion, decks, walkways and lush landscaping.
“I was working on another house in the neighborhood, and I kept going by this property,” he said. “It was the roofline I liked. Everyday, I’d look at this house and say, ‘someday, I’m going to own it.’ I showed it to my wife — she had just received her real estate license and this was her first sale.”
Hillel Presser’s Intracoastal-front home consists of a cluster of buildings with pagoda-style roofs.
Photos by Kurtis Boggs/The Coastal Star
Across the street, at 2730 Avenue Au Soleil, Hillel Presser is putting the finishing touches on a cluster of buildings with pagoda-like roofs on the water that he bought in February 2010. “I didn’t want to sacrifice the roof or the French Polynesian look, he said. “My whole idea was to keep with the original design, but to give it a modern beachy feel.”
Two outbuildings to the north and south are the guesthouse and the garage, which create symmetry and also define the courtyard. The main house features an open floor plan with a large living space and galley kitchen, as well as two bedroom suites.
To the rear of the house is a covered patio that offers views of the kidney-shaped pool, dock and water. “The property takes up an entire end of a short canal,” he said. “I get to enjoy looking at the Gulf Stream golf course and the Intracoastal Waterway without the noise or the seawall damage.
“I first saw the house online, drove up, saw the half-acre lot and the view and bought it. I didn’t even care about the condition of the buildings.”
Presser, a lawyer, often buys investment condos and this is his first house project. Although he may sell down the road, he’s feeling attached, already picking out appropriate furnishings, and he and his fiancée, Ashley Martini, plan to move in soon.
“I like the style,” he said. “It’s a good feeling — Zen.”
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