Clog makers buy Longboat Key home for $4.3 million

LONGBOAT KEY -- A couple who is the first name in urban dress clogs has purchased a pricey piece of Southwest Florida beach in the biggest Manatee County residential transaction so far this year.

Mandy Cabot and Peter Kjellerup, the founders of shoemaker Dansko, paid $4.3 million for a gulf-front home at 6477 Gulfside Road. The Feb. 12 transaction eclipses the $2.8 million sale in January of another Longboat Key home, at 6860 Pine St.

According to Manatee County records, the seller, a trust managed by William Tipping and Jaroslaw Pekaruk, took far less for the property than it paid. The trust bought the 13-year-old, six-bedroom, six-bath home in 2011 for $4.8 million.

Prior to the February sale, the house was listed for sale at $5.3 million. The price was later reduced to about $4.5 million. The house was on the market for about a year before it sold.

The listing agent for the property was Reid Murphy of Developers Realty on Longboat Key. The selling agent was Maureen Horn of Michael Saunders & Co.

According to the Dansko website, Cabot and Kjellerup started their company in 1990. In 2012, the company became employee-owned. Cabot remains Dansko's CEO.

The company sells a line of men's and women's leather clogs and other types

of shoes.

Cabot and Kjellerup list a home in rural Kennett Square, Pa., as their primary address.

Island beach properties in Manatee County have drawn other top business executives recently. Late last year, Honeywell CEO David M. Cote paid $4.1 million for 1.1 acres of vacant beachfront on the northwest shore of Anna Maria Island.

Real estate at the beach has generally attracted some of the area's top selling prices. The highest price paid for a single-family residential property in Manatee County in 2015 was for a beachfront estate at 5871 Gulf of Mexico Drive on Longboat Key. That 6,000-square-foot home sold for $5.625 million in May.

The highest-priced residential transaction of 2016 in Manatee and Sarasota counties so far was a $7.05 million sale of 1204 Hillview St. in Sarasota on Jan. 21.

Matt M. Johnson, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7027 or on Twitter @MattAtBradenon.

This story was originally published February 18, 2016 at 10:53 PM with the headline "Clog makers buy Longboat Key home for $4.3 million ."