A tycoon, a barge and Roscolusa’s roots: Historic Ponte Vedra Beach home hits the market

Save for Castillo San Marcos, you’d be hard-pressed to find a property with a more storied history than 143 S. Roscoe Boulevard in Ponte Vedra Beach.

The stately Greek Revival residence — now on the market for $6.5 million — was designed and built in 1903 by railroad magnate Thomas Denham, one of the three founders of the Atlantic National Bank.

But those century-old hammers swung far from the home’s current perch along the Intracoastal Waterway, according to Engel & Völkers First Coast advisor Judy Harkleroad.

Denham built his regal retreat on Lomax Street in Riverside, then a voguish location for Jacksonville’s elite to plant their stakes and announce their success.

Several owners resided in the home over the next 87 years before the property was purchased by a developer to make way for a senior living facility. A number of mansions along the once-gilded stretch — some of which had fallen into disrepair — were leveled to enable the new project.

The home at 709 Lomax Street had a date with the gallows in 1991 when longtime North Florida realtor Pam Bingemann — who lived around the corner — issued a last-minute pardon.

Bingemann happened to own a prime waterfront property in Ponte Vedra Beach and felt the Denham home would crown the plot beautifully.

She just had to get it there.

So the residence was wrenched from its ancient moorings, driven by trailer to a boat ramp, loaded onto a barge, and pulled down the St. Johns River to the site of its Roscoe reincarnation.

“Apparently, nothing broke,” Harkleroad told The Citizen. “There was a glass in a medicine cabinet — even that didn’t tip over.”

The home’s savior held onto the property until 2005 when she sold it to the current owners, Joe and Kathy Sullivan.

Enchanted by its migratory past and historic import, the couple restored the “Belle of the Valley” without disturbing its structural integrity, Harkleroad said.

But the 6,679 square foot Roscoe jewel’s unique place in local lore had another chapter to be written.

The Sullivans’ daughter, singer and songwriter Kim-Paige Sullivan, felt that the home she adored would be the perfect place for an intimate gathering of her musically inclined friends.

In 2012, with the Intracoastal shimmering behind them, roughly 100 close friends and family listened to several Nashville-based bands belt out melodies into the twilight.

“I was there,” Harkleroad said. “It really wasn’t that many of us. I still remember it.”

That modest assembly would eventually bloom into what is now Roscolusa, a wildly popular annual concert held at the Nocatee fields with Paige-Sullivan still at the helm.

“We never thought it would become what it is today,” Harkleroad said. “But that’s where it all started. It’s a special place.”