Winter Park is known in Central Florida as a town of good homes. Founded as a retreat from the North, the Orlando suburb has some of the area’s most storied (and expensive) residences. Locals and tourists will wander off Park Avenue just to take in some of the architecture and likely fantasize about how they would occupy such houses.
Rarely does the fantasizer think, “Then everyone would walk down the street to stare at my house.”
Kevin McClanahan lived in that kind of house. The home at 887 Georgia Ave. was the site of gatherings, tours and even a professional commercial.
McClanahan and his siblings have put the house on the market for $6.5 million. McClanahan, who is also an agent with Fannie Hillman & Associates, is handling the listing.
The 5,759-square-foot, six-bedroom home was originally built as a five-bedroom residence in 1924. County sales records for the property only go back to 1976, but McClanahan uncovered research that one resident left the property to Winter Park Memorial Hospital in 1958.
“The hospital said the house would be put up for sale and asked real estate agents to get in offers by a certain date,” he said. “The appraised value of the home was listed as $45,000.”
McClanahan’s father bought the house in 1980 for $250,000.
House attracts attention
From the street, the white Colonial facade stretched across the long ranch house body feels like something from New England. Inside, the coffered ceilings are latticed in polished wood beams that match the rich oak floors. The walls of the upstairs bedrooms, covered in patterned wallpaper, fold in toward the ceiling, giving the whole structure a dollhouse quality.
The showroom feeling of the estate was something McClanahan said his parents worked to maintain. “My mom had very good taste in decorating,” he said. “And she had help.”
Her work garnered attention, as the house was featured in magazines such as the now-defunct Florida Home & Garden, according to McClanahan.
The home was also selected as the site for a Hertz Rent-A-Car commercial in the mid-1980s, featuring the company’s spokespeople at the time, the late Arnold Palmer and O.J. Simpson.
“OJ signed footballs for all of us,” McClanahan said. “And my dad and Arnold became, not close friends, but they would talk every now and then. It was kind of cool.”
Once, a company professionally decorated his home for Christmas. “They put a Christmas tree in the pool,” McClanahan said.
The company offered paid tours of the house for a couple of weeks. “I remember coming home from school one day and they asked if I had a ticket to enter,” McClanahan recalled. “I said, ‘Well, I live here.’”
Parting with home 'bittersweet'
Christmas was a time when the charm of the house truly shined, according to McClanahan.
“We always had great Christmas Eve parties,” he said. “We would go to church and come home, so of course everyone was dressed their best. Neighbors and other family members would come by and have drinks and appetizers. That was always one of my favorite times in the house.”
Living in a home under the spotlight can be difficult for a kid, but McClanahan said he and his siblings found their own fun.
“The house has a full basement,” McClanahan said, a rarity anywhere in Florida with its shallow water table. McClanahan, who came to the home as a teenager, said he was a little too old to play with his siblings down there, but he did enjoy the hidden feature. “That was always interesting to me.”
Another oddity for the Sunshine State is that the home includes three gas fireplaces.
McClanahan’s family added the primary bedroom onto the south wing and a garage on the north side.
Now, with the parents gone, the family is ready to pass the home to a new generation. “It’s bittersweet,” McClanahan said, “but it’s time.”