An Architect’s $40 Million Oceanfront Mansion in Georgia Is Centered Around a Spectacular Atrium
The by-every-standard unconventional beachfront getaway of the John C. Portman, within Georgia’s private Sea Island enclave, represents an apotheosis of the innovative (if sometimes underappreciated) architect and developer’s dramatic signature style.
The fantastical residence, completed in 1986 and facing the Atlantic Ocean, served as a sanctuary for Portman and his family for a quarter century before his 2017 death at 93 years old. A bold and carefully balanced compilation of geometric shapes, squiggly accents, bold colors, and unexpected spaces that blur distinctions between indoor and outdoor, the property is newly listed for $40 million.
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Chase Mizell of Atlanta Fine Homes & Sotheby’s International Realty and Susan Imhoff and Ann Harrell of DeLoach Sotheby’s International Realty hold the listing, which touts the property as “a testament to Portman’s architectural legacy, a rare opportunity to reside in a space where the boundaries between art, architecture, and nature dissolve into a unified, transcendent experience.”
Portman, responsible for most of the buildings that comprise the sprawling Peachtree Center in his home city of Atlanta, is probably best known for creating the soaring (and some critics scoffed the melodramatic) atria of hotels across the country, including the Embarcadero Hyatt in San Francisco, where Mel Brooks’s 1977 “High Anxiety” was filmed, as well as the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and the Marriott Marquis in New York’s Time Square.
Portman dubbed his oceanside getaway Entelechy II, which means the realization of potential. And certainly, much was realized here. Portman called his primary home in Atlanta Entelechy I, and it’s similar in its bold approach to residential architecture as his seaside getaway.
Measuring almost 13,000 square feet with seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms, plus another powder room, the home was designed as much to interact with its spectacular oceanside location as to create an insular residence turned inward on—you got it!—a spectacular atrium supported by a dozen towering columns that flare as they meet the gridded ceiling three floors above a series of vine-draped balconies that cantilever over a shallow pool lined with charcoal-colored stones. One of the columns houses a wet bar with a serving counter, another a vermillion-walled elevator and a third a corkscrew staircase that winds up to a crow’s nest with wraparound views.
The many other unusual spaces include a spacious, second-floor formal living area with a circular cutout in the floor that peers down into the dining room, contained within a circular glass volume on the ground floor of the atrium. Elsewhere, the fireside library on the top floor has an ocean-facing deck beneath a canopy of white tubing, and the kitchen includes a large informal dining space, while a ground-floor lounge with a kitchenette opens onto the pool deck.
No less attention was paid to the many outdoor spaces, which include a vast, partly covered deck that hovers over the front of the home, while a bridge connects an equally expansive deck at the back of the house to a spiral staircase that swoops down to a poolside terrace. Multicolored sculptures and forms can be found throughout the house and grounds, including one that dangles over the pool, as well as a lookout tower positioned alongside a gated path to the beach.
Adding to the property’s versatility, a separate and much more conventional cottage that spans roughly 3,400 square feet has four bedrooms and three- and one-half baths for guests or staff.
Click here for more photos of the Sea Island estate.
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