Boulevard Place Waterfront Mansion Sells for $13.25M

Another grand waterfront home on Mercer Island sold last week, and local officials are hailing a series of major real estate sales in the past four months as a sign the local housing market is recovering.

The large waterfront home, located at 4137 Boulevard Place, sold for $13,250,000 million on Nov. 21, according to property records. The home is was last listed with an asking price of $16,288,000 by Ewing & Clark Principal Broker Kris Robbs and was sold by Kathy Beckes with Coldwell Banker Danforth.

The 7-bed, 8-bath 13,560 square-foot lakefront mansion was owned through a trust by David and Becky Sandwith, local residents who own a second, more modest home nearby. The home was originally put up for sale with an asking price of $28.8 million in 2010.

The buyer is a trust whose trustee is John R Tomlinson, Jr., a partner of Seattle law firm Barokas Martin & Tomlinson and a litigator specializing in real estate, construction and business, according to the firm’s website.

The property features a three-level limestone terrace, a home theatre, two elevators, a living room with 25-foot ceilings and a pillared veranda, and a resort-style pool with nine water fountains — including an outdoor hidden TV lift to fit a 152" plasma screen.

The home was offered at an elaborate bidders auction last summer but failed to attract a winning bid when the real estate was apparently cooler. But local officials are hailing the recent sale of several homes over $5 million as a sign the real estate market recovery is in full bloom.

City Assistant Finance Director Francie Lake boosting the market and city tax revenues. The state's most expensive residential home sale happened on Mercer Island in September when a large property at Proctor Landing sold for $21.65 million.

City Hall is forecasting $1,980,000 in revenue based on 400 home sales and other properties for all of 2012 — a significant recovery from 2008 when just 260 homes sold. As of October, 349 homes have been sold, and the city estimates $900,000 for the average price in 2012 of a home sold.

City Manager Rich Conrad said the city is projecting that Mercer Island will fully recover in 2015, when the average sales price estimated at $1.11 million — higher than in 2007 at the beginning of the Great Recession.

(Ed. Note: An earlier version incorrectly stated that that Kris Robbs sold the home. In fact, Robbs was the listing broker, and Broker Kathy Beckes with Coldwell Banker Danforth sold the property. Mercer Island Patch regrets the error.)