Crème de la crème: Winter Park home sells for $7.25 million

It's a good feeling to help sell one of the most expensive homes in Winter Park’s history. For Realtors John Pinel and Mick Night, it’s also very much business as usual.

The Winter Park real estate duo recently helped sell a residence overlooking Lake Maitland for $7.25 million, the second largest sale in Winter Park.

The residence, located at 866 Via Lugano and built in 2015 by Rial Jones, of Jones Clayton Construction, with furnishings included by Marc-Michaels Interior Design, is situated on 3.36 acres of land with more than 10,000 square feet of interior. 

“Selling a home of this caliber — in just 94 days and at the second-highest price in area history — is a testament to the strength of the Winter Park market and the lifestyle that Lake Maitland offers,” Night said.

“Mick’s been working this market for 31 years; it’s just evolved into the higher-end because of this track record,” Pinel said. “We treat it like a business; there’s a lot of emotions involved in selling homes. I think buyers and sellers see the way we treat the transaction and the value that we add.”

The house is a sizable piece of real estate — six bedrooms, nine-and-one-half bathrooms, an expansive kitchen, a master suite, multiple fireplaces, dual offices, a private home theater and even a gym. The outside features a fire pit, summer kitchen, multiple lanais, an infinity-edge pool and spa and even a private beach. 

Something particularly appealing to the buyer, according to Pinel, was the home’s placement on an acre lot above water. It provided an elevation unique to homes on Lake Maitland. 

“There’s a strip of homes along Lake Maitland that sit very high up,” Pinel said. “It was almost a brand-new home, hardly lived in. … It had gorgeous architecture with a Tuscan-style, Mediterranean feel.”

It’s not the first time Night and Pinel have sold a multi-million dollar home. The duo has been involved in seven out of the 10 highest-recorded residential sales in Winter Park history and have been involved in the top-three highest closed residential sales ranging from $7.1 million to $11 million.

Their biggest claim is bringing buyers to the $11 million sale of the 656 North Interlachen Ave. home in 2017, the most expensive sale in Winter Park history. What’s more, that sale took only 10 days. 

“Both of these sales — the $11 million and this one — were way, way under what the replacement costs would be for these properties,” Pinel said. “To buy it at $7.25 million is strong.”

Night and Pinel joined Premier Sotheby’s International Realty’s Winter Park office in late 2018.