What Will Become of Florida’s Infamous ‘Holdout House’?

On the southernmost tip of Clearwater Beach, FL, a luxurious beachfront cottage whose owners reportedly refused all buyout offers for decades is now the lone single-family house in a sea of large condo developments.

The property’s future is now in question after it sold for nearly $3 million last fall.

In September 2023, the unique property at 887 S Gulfview Blvd., dubbed the “Holdout House,” hit the market for a smidge under $7 million.

But despite what must have been intense developer interest, the Holdout House didn’t sell. There were multiple price cuts until the property was scooped up by JRP Property Group LLC for $2.99 million in November 2025, according to public records. The seller is listed as Breeze Property Group LLC.

JRP Property Group is registered to James R. Polacek, who is listed as a real estate agent with Charles Rutenberg Realty, Inc in Clearwater.

Reached by phone, Polacek said, “I’m not the one you want to talk to. You’d want to talk to my business partner. If he’s interested, he’ll call you. I seriously doubt he will be, though.”

Cara Ameer, a Ponte Vedra, FL-based Coldwell Banker agent, is familiar with the house and more willing to talk about what might be its future.

“This is a very special home and one of a kind. It is likely for redevelopment on some level, despite it being a treasured piece of history along Clearwater Beach,” she tells Realtor.com®.

“It could be turned into a larger oceanfront estate, condo building or hotel/resort or restaurant. I’m sure the property will be transformed into its highest and best use, despite locals likely not being in favor of that.”

“The price of progress makes it harder to preserve these properties that have so much legacy and history, unfortunately.”

Holding out

Over six decades, two different sets of homeowners refused to give into the apparent pressure of condo developers who wanted to snap up the last remaining undeveloped oceanfront in the immediate area. This left the house with a small moat of green space holding off dense multistory dwellings.

Built by original owners Carl Wilkens and Mary Ackert in 1963, the four-bedroom Victorian-style gray house with double-tiered terraces is nestled on a .3-acre lot a stone’s throw from Clearwater Harbor.

In 2021, Cathy Salustri wrote about her experience on a dolphin-watch boat with a captain who had a lot to say about the Holdout House, as well as owner Ackert, nicknamed the “The Holdout Lady.” (It’s unclear why Ackert’s husband did not figure into the David and Goliath narrative.)

“You see, she loved her home and she loved her view. See that gray house right there?” the captain reportedly told the boat’s occupants. “That was her home, and no matter how much money the developer offered her, she politely refused.”

“Then things got-not-so nice,” Salustri recalled the captain telling the enthralled boaters. “As construction started on the condos, things got increasingly nasty. Workers ‘accidentally’ cut her power lines. A bulldozer ‘accidentally’ broke the water main that supplied her drinking water…”

“And still, she stayed in her home, no matter how ugly the developer made things for her.”

According to local lore—or at least this particular boat captain—the “Holdout Lady” then “had the deed to the property changed so that particular piece of land could only ever be used as a single-family home.”

Selling the house

Finally, in 1986, the original owners decided to sell, but reportedly only under the condition that the buyers—local newscaster Joe Mannion and his wife, Elizabeth—not sell the house to developers, according to Tampa Bay Creative Loafing.

According to public record, the house changed hands for a mere $133,200.

Reportedly, Mannion and his wife lived there—presumably also fighting off developers—until their deaths and the home passed to their estate, then went to market in September 2023 for $6.99 million.

Listings showed that the boat captain’s declaration of the home’s deed being changed to make it off limits to development was nothing but a tall tale.

In an Oct. 7, 2024 Arc Realty Group listing, the property, now discounted to $4.75 million, was advertised as being “zoned for 30 units per acre, making 9 units possible. 2 parking spaces required per unit (to be verified by buyer).”

This was only days after multiple Facebook posts claimed that the house had been “hit hard” by Hurricane Helene.

“Entire porch gone. It’s in CP Marina Pool. All water side windows gone. Total loss damage inside. Minimum 4″ water inside. So sad,” wrote Cindy Yassay, who posted accompanying photos of what appeared to be major damage to both the interior and exterior of the home.

But the home was repaired. Tax assessment records show that $419,706 was poured into improvements, likely in 2025.

It’s unclear why the seller would have put that much money into renovating the house if common knowledge would have it that it would soon be razed for development.

In the new $2,999,000 listing late that same year, photos showed a 2,604-square-foot, four-bedroom, three-bath house worthy of a spread in a home decor magazine. There are crisp white walls, stainless steel appliances, an open kitchen with stone countertops, a formal dining and sitting area, sunlight-splashed bedrooms, and a spiral wooden staircase to a decked-out third-floor loft.

But it’s the stunning beach views, teal-blue water so close to the porch it feels as if one could reach out and touch it, and 120 feet of private Intracoastal frontage that are the crowning features.

“‘The Holdout Home’ historically resisted development,” begins the original listing, posted by Jim Price of Engel & Völkers Belleair in Sept. 26, 2023, a few days before Hurricane Helene smashed into the house. “It now stands as the only single-family home on the southernmost point of Clearwater Beach, FL! Over 180 degrees of waterfront warms your soul, as the sun sets in the Gulf of Mexico.

“It is the only home that offers this view. Folks have been boating nearby for decades appreciating the beauty of this historic structure wondering who lives there? Well now, it can be you!”

The listing’s last line proves that the boat captain’s tale about the property being off limits to development was merely good storytelling: “Please inquire about the commercial development opportunities with this unique property as well!”

Co-listing agent Kristin Hallamek of Engel & Völkers Belleair tells Realtor.com that the sellers were the adult children of the Mannion couple.

“They’d had it for years in the family, and it was time to sell,” she says. “The market was up.”

She says the home received multiple offers, but none that were near the $7 million the sellers were asking, so this time it was the Mannion brothers who were the “holdouts.”

However, all that changed when the hurricane hit. “They ended up selling it off market,” she says. “Probably should have taken them,” she says of the offers that were refused.

She adds that she has gone by the house on a boat and that the home appears to have been completely renovated.

“I’m glad it looks like somebody is keeping it as is,” she says. “It would make a very busy Airbnb.”

“To step out a door and you’re four steps into sand is pretty unique.”