In the latest indicator of the changes taking place on our island, the billionaire founder of a global clinical research organization is building a custom home on South Beach that is so large real estate agents say they have been asked if it is perhaps a hotel.

At 28,946 square feet under roof, the home at 930 Reef Road is bigger than the “Wackenhut house,” the “Barcode lady’s house,” and the  famous modernist home in Central Beach  that sparked a local oceanfront property boom when it was built a decade ago.

The 200-foot-long oceanfront home across A1A from The Moorings will be the fourth largest house on the barrier island when completed next year.  County property records and building permits show the owner, August J. Troendle, has more than $22 million committed to the project.

The house will be surpassed in size only by two world-class houses in Vero’s Estate Section, and one near the north end of the island built by a lottery winner and currently on the market for $33 million.

It will also be by far the largest home ever built on Reef, marking the third stage in the road’s upscale transformation over the past 10 years.

A quiet, beachy lane across A1A from The Moorings, Reef Road stretches about a mile from Windward Way to Captains Walk. The first quarter mile north of Windward is lined by condominiums and a parklike ocean access area reserved for Moorings residents.

Single-family houses start north of Lantern Lane and there are 24 oceanfront lots and homes between there and the north end of the road, with an equal number of homes on the west side of the street.

“The new house at 930 Reef is the largest, most valuable home on the road,” said homegrown Vero Beach developer Yane Zana. “It is a custom home, not a spec, but it raises the bar again.”

“One reason the neighborhood is on the rise is that people [like Troendle] have been able to buy double lots and build big houses,” said The Moorings Realty Sales Co. broker Marsha Sherry. “It is a fantastic, established neighborhood that is security patrolled.  You are close to town and have easy access to three bridges.”

The house is close to being structurally complete, with its shape and dimensions plain to see, but has not been finished on the inside or out, judging from a street view. It will be finished on the outside with stucco, wooden roof shingles and cooper gutters.

The architecture has a French provincial feel with some Anglo-Caribbean touches, including broken eaves, and two symmetrical chimneys that evoke Georgian revival. Which is not to say it is a hodgepodge. It is a very attractive, distinctly symmetrical building with European and island influences that will likely justify the adjective magnificent when it is completed next year.

The first oceanfront houses on Reef Road were built in the early 1960s, a decade before The Moorings was developed by the Gonzalez family, but most went up in the 1980s and 1990s, largely middle-class houses in the 3,000-to-5,000-square foot range, with a number of bedrooms you could count on one hand that gradually filled in the sandy side of the road.

For 20 or 30 years, not much else happened in between hurricanes.

Zana began the road’s renewal about 10 years ago, when he and his investors purchased two teardown properties with 200 feet of ocean frontage and subdivided them into four 100-foot-wide lots and built four houses in the 12,000-square-foot range, including both spec and custom homes.

“The land purchases were in 2013 or 2014 and three of the homes were delivered in 2016,” Zana told Vero Beach 32963. “There was a house built in the 1970s on property that became 640 and 650 Reef Road, and one built in the 1980s or 1990s on the other.”

The 1970s home was owned by owned by Flight Safety founder Albert Ueltschi, who had passed away at age 95 the year before the sale.

“Those houses, which were built simultaneously, really started the changes on Reef,” Zana said. “After that it lay dormant for four or five years.”

The second burst of real estate activity arrived along with the COVID-19 virus. Between 2020 and 2023, during the pandemic migration, 12 of the 24 oceanfront properties changed hands, along with five on the west side of the street, resulting in major remodels, new construction and lots of new blood in the neighborhood.

There are three new homes under construction on the street at the moment, including the big house.

Troendle, a medical research executive, bought the vacant 1.28-acre lot at 930 Reef Road during the pandemic sea change, paying $4.3 million in January 2021.

By March 2022 Moulton Layne architects had a set of plans drawn up for a concrete and steel structure with 28,946 square feet under roof and 26,935 square feet of air-conditioned space.

Those plans were refined during the normal lengthy permitting process for oceanfront homes until a final set was reviewed by Indian River County planners on June 15, 2023.

A building permit for $17,839,900 was issued the next day and work began soon afterward.

A doctor and entrepreneur, Troendle founded the medical research organization Medpace in 1992 and took it to great success.

Classified as a contract research company, Medpace has offices and labs in more than 20 countries on six continents. It helps pharmaceutical and biotech companies conduct drug trials and other research, with the goal of “accelerating the global development of safe and effective medical therapeutics,” according to the company website.

Chief executive officer and chairman of the company since he founded it, Troendle has a net worth of $2.7 billion this week, according to Forbes’ real-time wealth tracker.

He liquified some of that wealth during the period of preparation and construction, selling approximately $150 million in Medpace stock in 16 transactions in 2023 and 2024, according to marketbeat.com.

The house that some of that money likely went into appears even larger than it is, because the lot is relatively shallow, and the structure is stretched out along the road instead of going deep toward the ocean.

Built on three levels, the roughly 201-foot by 73-foot home has six bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, including eight full baths, an 80-foot oceanfront swimming pool and a 6,000-square-foot garage, according to plans filed with the county.

The lower floor, which is mostly below grade, includes the epic garage, an approximately 1,200-square-foot gym, a roughly 700 square-foot rec room with a sauna, two half-baths and lots of storage space. There are two drive-in garage entrances but no apparent walkout entrance. Access to the first floor is via two U-shaped staircases and an elevator.

The second level, which the architects call the first floor, has two beautiful bedroom/bath/sitting room suites placed like bookends at the north and south ends of the house, occupying the full 73-foot depth. This main living level also includes a beach bath, pool bath and powder room; kitchen, breakfast room, wine room and walk-in pantry; a lounge; a theater with AV closet; the main laundry; a household office; a sitting loggia and a dining loggia; and a two-story great room with porch. Because the house is relatively shallow, most of the rooms have ocean views.

The third level has two more bed/bath/sitting room suites directly above the ones below; an additional ensuite bedroom and the primary suite; two large offices with full bathrooms, one with a balcony labeled Hers and one with a sitting room labeled His; a second laundry room and a kitchenette. In total, there are four bedrooms, six full baths and four seaward balconies on this level.

It is tricky to gauge the value of the finished house, since it is a custom home and will not be put on the market, but Joe Foglia of Foglia Contracting, who built one of the three island houses larger than 930 Reef and is familiar with the oceanfront market in Vero, says retail cost could easily be $1,000 a square foot, “with all the bells and whistles.”

That would amount to a value of around $30 million, plus the $4.3 million cost of the prime lot, which has more than 200 feet of ocean frontage.

The highest price paid on the street for a house so far was $7.7 million for 640 Reef Road in 2021. But Zana says the big houses he built have become much more valuable since 2021, like most real estate in Vero Beach.

“If they were on the market, they would be $15 to $17 million,” he said. “You couldn’t touch one of those houses for less than $15 million, in my opinion.”

The new house will tend to raise values further as the street gains additional cache.

The location of Troendle’s house is another plus for its value. Reef Road is a stone’s throw from The Moorings Yacht & Country Club, with a full slate of luxurious amenities, and equally close to St. Edward’s School, a highly regarded private school many island children attend.

“Reef Road and the streets between it and A1A have very much of a community of feel,” says Zana. “A wonderful couple from England who bought 680 Reef from us, have told me they really, really love the community feel of Reef Road and the Moorings.”

The section is quiet with very little through traffic, and Zana says “you can walk close to 2 miles in the neighborhood, without having to cross A1A.”

There are two oceanfront lots left on Reef Road, including one large lot where another major house could be built, as well as some potential teardowns, so the transformation of the street is likely to continue.