Katie Gerhardt remembered when her parents’ Siesta Key properties sat so close to the Gulf that one parcel was entirely underwater and the other was barely dry.
During a violent storm in the early 1980s, she recalled, waves pushed wet sand into a rental home the family owned on the dry lot, leaving Gerhardt to scoop sandy muck out of the house for days afterward.
At the time, the Gulf lapped at the property’s edge. But over the years, sand accumulated through a natural process called accretion — first slowly, then more recently by as much as 7 feet per year.
Today, hundreds of feet of white, Siesta sand stretches all the way to the water.
The family had long since sold the parcel with the rental home, but kept the one once submerged by water and now boasting nothing but beach.
“I came back out here about 10 years ago, it was like, ‘Wow,’” she said. “‘Look what’s happening.’”
Gerhardt, a retired property appraiser, didn’t think much about the value of the family’s growing beach, calling the sandy lot her family has owned for about 50 years “basically worthless” because county development codes prevent anyone from building there.
So she was stunned — then outraged — to learn that Siesta Key businessman Michael Holderness stood to gain millions of dollars in value by swapping his adjacent beach lots that are nearly identical to hers with prime real estate owned by Sarasota County. The deal is part of a settlement of a property rights lawsuit filed by Holderness’ company, Siesta Beach Lots LLC, against the county — but is on hold after another Siesta Beach resident, Lourdes Ramirez, filed a legal challenge in circuit court to block it.
What angered Gerhardt the most, she said, is that the county is attempting to acquire her family’s beach lot — and at least two others nearby — for a fraction of what Holderness would receive. As recently as last year, the Gerhardt family was offered $30,000 for its parcel, which it rejected.
Public records show a similar offer was made to another longtime Siesta Beach owner, Donna Phelps Clayton, whose family has owned its property for about as long as the Gerhardts. The county offered Clayton a total of $87,000 for her two beach lots, a price that Gerhardt said underscored how unevenly property owners were being treated. An unsigned sale and purchase contract for the two Clayton parcels was dated Nov. 20, county records show.
By contrast, Holderness, whose four lots are valued at a combined $86,000, would receive a county-owned lot worth $2.8 million, plus $500,000 in cash and a memorial to his mother at Beach Access 3, if the land swap proceeds — a deal that has prompted scrutiny by nearby property owners, county officials and local activists over how the county evaluates and negotiates such acquisitions.
“Although we do not need the money, we stand against the injustice of the county treating the owners of these lots unequally and the injustice of having the Sarasota County taxpayers pay for it,” Gerhardt told Suncoast Searchlight after first learning of the land swap by reading Suncoast Searchlight reporting earlier this month.
Clayton declined to comment.
A spokeswoman for Sarasota County said in an email that its land acquisition program "is a willing seller program that bases purchase price on appraised value. There are many different factors when land gets valued and appraised including access, adjacency to other public land, etc."
The offers identified by Suncoast Searchlight may not represent a complete list of county attempts to purchase Siesta Key beach lots. While the county provided records for the Gerhardt and Clayton offers, which Suncoast Searchlight requested by parcel number, a broader public records request for any additional offers along the beach — along with staff communications about them — was still being processed by the time of publication.
For his part, Holderness said he views his properties as fundamentally different from the other beach lots the county sought to acquire.
He said the offers made to the other property owners sounded low to him but argued that his holdings carry greater value — and are, in fact, “priceless” — because he assembled four, mostly adjacent, parcels, with one of them located near a public beach access point.
“There’s a big difference between my lots and theirs,” he said. “Mine control the beach access.”
Despite years trying to keep people off his private beaches, Holderness said he’s actually a public beach advocate, saying his concerns stemmed from fear of lawsuits if someone were to be injured on the property. That’s part of the reason he said he filed his previous and current lawsuits against the county and why he hopes the settlement goes through — so the county can open up those lots to the public without him worrying about his own liability.
Holderness also applauded the county’s efforts to acquire the other beachfront parcels and suggested the owners could package their plots together in a single deal, which might earn them more value and open up even more beachfront land for public use.
But he lamented the criticism over the deal, saying that every time the county tries to do “the right thing” by acquiring property on Siesta Key, it becomes controversial.
“If I was the county, I wouldn’t deal with it,” Holderness said of the controversy. “I would go out to Myakka and buy land there.”
How the Holderness land swap came together — and why it’s on hold
Under an agreement approved by county commissioners, Sarasota County would transfer a parcel it owns to Holderness in exchange for his four beach lots. To make the deal possible, commissioners also approved a variance allowing Holderness to build a 5,000-square-foot house on the land he was set to receive — despite having rejected similar variance requests on that same lot over the years.
That’s because the lot sits behind Sarasota County’s Gulf Beach Setback Line, a protected zone that preserves dunes and natural storm buffers.
The variance — and the fact that the county originally bought that lot with money from a park acquisition program — proved contentious. Commissioner Tom Knight said during a public meeting last month that he did not fully understand the history or value of the county parcel at stake. In comments to Suncoast Searchlight afterward, he said, “misleading by omission is no better than a lie,” reflecting concerns about how the proposal had been presented to commissioners ahead of the vote.
Ramirez, a longtime Siesta Key resident and activist, filed the legal challenge against the deal earlier this month. Plaintiffs also include John Phair and Protect Siesta Key Inc., a nonprofit organization Ramirez founded.
The 53-page petition alleges the county violated its coastal setback development codes while also disposing of property that taxpayers paid $1.4 million for in 2017 through a county parkland program. That value has since doubled, according to the county property appraiser.
The challenge requests that Circuit Judge Hunter W. Carroll overturn the variance the county granted and clarify whether the county can sell land acquired for parkland that used taxpayer dollars.
If successful, the challenge could unwind the federal settlement agreement; Holderness’ attorneys told the commissioners during the Nov. 5 meeting that without the variance, the federal lawsuit would continue.
All the beach lots, including the one involved in the Holderness land deal, were behind the setback line.
Gerhardt said she supports the legal action, largely on environmental grounds, but also believes county taxpayers are paying far too much for the beach lots.
“I don’t think people should get variances to build mega mansions on this natural land,” Gerhardt told Suncoast Searchlight.
A welcoming sign in the Siesta sand
On a cold but sunny morning this month, Gerhardt crossed the expanse of white sand that now stretches across her family’s property to the Gulf and erected a sign letting the public know her property was available for use. Unlike Holderness and other private property owners along the shoreline, she said, she welcomes beachgoers.
Later that morning, two of them arrived.
Dave and Tammy Tackett, donning festive Santa hats, sat on the sand of Gerhardt’s property facing a camera set on a timer. The vacationers from South Carolina were taking the photos for Christmas cards.
Tammy Tackett said they have collected sand from all the beaches they’ve visited during their travels. Their favorite jar of sand — the whitest in their collection — came from Siesta Key.
The couple began vacationing on the key in the early 2000s, she said, but in recent years, they’ve noticed more “no trespassing signs” along the beach. Until that morning, she said, they did not realize the stretch they were sitting on was private property.
If disputes between private property owners and public beach access continue, she said, she worries about the impact it could have on tourism for the barrier island.
“I don’t want to deal with that drama,” she said. “I’m on vacation … How can you claim private property? This is God’s land.”
This story was produced by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
Editor's note: Suncoast Searchlight says it does not use generative AI in its stories. If you have questions about their policies or content, contact Executive Editor-In-Chief Emily Le Coz at emily@suncoastsearchlight.org.
