Turchin estate in Miami Beach heads to the auction block

Designer and developer John Turchin is taking his 1937 Miami Beach home to the auction block – about seven months after listing the property for sale.

Entrance to 215 East Dilido Drive

Turchin, head of Turchin Companies, listed the 5,163-square-foot home for $9.8 million in October. On May 6, it will go to a live auction with a reserve of $3.9 million, he told The Real Deal.

Miami Beach architect Russell Pancoast designed the five-bedroom, five-and-a-half bathroom home. County records show Turchin and his wife Susan paid $630,000 for the waterfront property in 1993. “It’s been my house for the past 25 years,” Turchin told TRD. “I’m an empty nester.”

The Mediterranean-style home, at 215 East Dilido Drive, includes a swimming pool, Jacuzzi, courtyards, 60 feet of bay frontage and a 50-foot dock. Turchin said he’s renovated the property over the years with imported coffered ceilings and fresco ceilings, and stone and wood flooring. It sits on a 10,500-square-foot lot.

The home is on Di Lido Island, part of the Venetian Islands. A number of homes in Miami Beach, and Di Lido in particular, have been torn down and replaced by modern mansions. Turchin said his property is not a tear-down.

“There is room in this marketplace for good architecture and it will go back up in value as soon as we go through this phase of everyone wanting modern architecture,” he said.

Martina Formanek of ONE Sotheby’s International Realty was the listing agent, dropping the price to $7.85 million in November. Nelson Gonzalez of Esslinger Wooten Maxwell has the listing, now at $6.9 million, as of February.

Platinum Luxury Auctions is auctioning the property in May. The luxury real estate auction house focuses on non-distressed sales of multimillion-dollar properties. Trayor Lesnock, president of Platinum, said bidders must make a refundable $100,000 deposit or proof of a certified check in that amount to qualify. Registration is open until 5 p.m. the day before, Lesnock told TRD.

Gonzalez, Platinum and the buyer’s agents will take their commissions from an additional 10 percent that is tacked on to the ultimate sales price, Lesnock said.