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Vintage Sanibel resort sells for $4.25M
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By DICK HOGAN dhogan@news-press.com
Mitchell's Sandcastles, a family-run Sanibel resort that dates back to 1960, has been sold for $4.25 million to a Manhattan doctor who plans to keep it the way it is.
Dr. Mark Sobel and his wife, Mary Grace, bought the 43-year-old collection' of cottages and its more than 2 acres of property and are also buying a house across West Gulf Drive from the resort for $850,000, said real estate broker J.B. Novelli of Century 21 J.B. Novelli International, who sold the property. Trevor Nette of Coldwell Banker on Sanibel was the listing agent.
"Everyone who looked at this looked at it for development, but Dr. Sobers going to rent it as cottages on the beach' Novelli said. "He thinks it's a dying breed of resort and he's going to keep it that way and hoping to have it appreciate."
The Sobels will keep the house across the street as a residence, she said.
Dean Mitchell built the first dozen cottages in 1960 and died in 1989, leaving the place to his wife, Barbara, and two daughters: Roxanne Palmer and Carolynn Miller.
Roxanne Palmer's husband, Ralph, said they live in Iona and have been running Mitchell's "for about 20 years. She's been here for 25 years, since the day she got out of high school."
They'll miss the place, he said. "The fishing's great here, the best on the island There's a reef out front here, and right from the shore, you can wade out and catch anything" - once he caught a 44-inch snook.
But now, said Ralph Palmer, who recently retired from his job as a paramedic with the Fort Myers Fire Department, it's time to move on - although with a beach house on Blind Pass, they won't be strangers to Sanibel.
"We're going to live the dream:" he said.
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