Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Wonderland developer Eustace Mita, whose proposal for a luxury seven-story hotel in Ocean City has drawn critics<\/a>, is building an enormous spec house in the Avalon<\/a> dunes that will be the borough\u2019s largest home.<\/p>\n Mita says the 17,694-square-foot home at 5475 Dune Drive is not for his personal use, but rather a house built by his Achristavest construction company that will be offered for sale. There is no designated buyer yet, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a spec home,\u201d he said by telephone. \u201cIs it the biggest home in Avalon? Yes, absolutely. It\u2019s not just one big home. It\u2019s a home with a carriage house.\u201d<\/p>\n Construction will require additional sand trucked in to fortify the dune for the property, which will include a 14,000-square-foot main house connected to a 3,000-square-foot carriage house.<\/p>\n It replaces a 7,800-square-foot home that will be torn down<\/a>, said Mita, the owner of the Icona brand of Shore hotels. His company bought the property for $10.3 million in 2024.<\/p>\n Mita said he will continue to personally use a home on the beach in Ocean City, at 28th and Wesley. <\/p>\n Two stories in the new house will be subterranean and three will be above ground, he said. The below-ground floors will include a bowling alley, golf simulator, indoor pool, home theater, recording studio, and cold plunge.<\/p>\n He said has secured state environmental proposals and emphasized that the house, because it will occupy the same footprint as the existing house, did not need any zoning approvals from Avalon borough.<\/p>\n Avalon\u2019s impressively high and vast dune system includes 11 homes. The largest existing house in the dunes is at 5299 Dune Drive and owned by the heirs to the Utz potato chip family business. It is 12,631 square feet.<\/p>\n The Utz family had to go to an appeals court for final approval for their 40 room shore house, over the objections of environmental groups seeking to preserve one of the last remaining high dune systems on the East Coast.<\/a><\/p>\n In Mita\u2019s case, the Avalon planning and zoning board approved the plans on June 9, with the only notes being that the sand brought in should be \u201cclean, uncontaminated, and free of hazardous substances.\u201d<\/p>\n At the July borough council meeting, several residents expressed concern about the size of the project and its impact on the dunes. <\/p>\n Mita said the additional sand was requested by state environmental officials to fortify the dunes and will be placed on the street side near the retaining wall, not \u201conto the dunes\u201d as some residents feared.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t even need variances,\u201d he said. \u201cThe renderings make it look overpowering.\u201d<\/p>\n The additional sand, he said, was mandated by CAFRA (Coastal Area Facility Review Act) regulations. <\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t build one inch into the existing toe of the dunes,\u201d he said. \u201cI have to build a retaining wall as to not to encroach on the dune. It preserves the integrity.\u201d <\/p>\n At the recent council meeting in Avalon, residents expressed concerns about the scale of the house and its prominence on top of the dune.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a ruin, a ruin of the dunes,\u201d said resident Elaine Scattergood, who said borough officials were being misled by claims that the property would stay within the footprint and elevation of the existing house. \u201cIf the dunes were a child, I think the protective agency would have taken it away from us.\u201d<\/p>\n In Ocean City, meanwhile, those engaged in the back and forth over the Wonderland site also had a lot to say about Mita\u2019s plan for Avalon\u2019s high dunes.<\/p>\n \u201cHis home looks bigger than the hotel he wants to build in O.C.,\u201d said one Facebook commenter.<\/p>\n \u201cBarge the old home up to the Wonderland site,\u201d said another. \u201cProblem solved.\u201d<\/p>\n Mita said his company is currently building three beachfront spec homes at 77th in Avalon, and three beachfront homes at 116th Street in Ocean City.<\/p>\n He said building a spec home of this size and expected sale price in the many tens of millions was \u201cso risky.\u201d <\/p>\n Who would be a potential buyer?<\/p>\n \u201cLeBron James<\/a>,\u201d he mused. \u201cOr Taylor Swift<\/a>. She spent summers in Stone Harbor<\/a>. There\u2019s a recording studio. You can\u2019t even buy a beach block lot in Avalon or Stone Harbor for $5 million.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min Wonderland developer Eustace Mita, whose proposal for a luxury seven-story hotel in Ocean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[110184,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-259664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-avalon-house-eustace-mita","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}