Move Over, Walter DeGarmo: Star Island Owner Wants Room For New Manse
Curbed Miami
by Curbed Staff
The manse at 27 Star Island, at left, could be relocated to make room for the design at right.
Yet another Walter DeGarmo-designed house on Star Island island stands between a home owner and his dreams for a much larger house, but since demoing it a la 42 Star Island Drive isn’t going to happen he’s going to move it. He couldn’t bulldoze it and he couldn’t flip it so John Jansheski, the founder of floss, tongue scraper and over-the-counter dental guard maker DenTek, has proposed stripping his Walter DeGarmo home at 27 Star Island down to its original 1924 design and relocating it, so as to make room for a brand new McMansion.
Jansheski bought the property for $10.75 million in May 2011, hoping to flip it 10 months later for $21 million. Failing to find a buyer, Jansheski came up with an inventive way to enjoy more modern digs without violating Miami Beach’s pre-1942 zoning restrictions.
This will be achieved by removing the modern garage and residential wing and rotating the original house 90 degrees, according to a Miami Beach Historic Preservation staff report published by exMiami. A two-story concrete and glass mansion designed by the South African firm Stefan Antoni Olmesdahl Truen Architects would occupy the newly cleared space.
—Emily Schmall
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