Ex-Detroit auto industry CEO selling historic Miami Beach Art Deco spread for $7M
Nearly a decade ago, a couple found an abandoned, boarded-up Art Deco Miami Beach house, which was stripped bare inside and had graffiti on the walls. No matter, they fell in love with the shabby historic home.
“It’s the bones of the house — the streamline Art Deco architecture,” said Michael Chetcuti, a former Detroit automotive industry CEO who bought the home with his partner Kyle Evans. Since he was 16 growing up in Detroit, Chetcuti became obsessed with Art Deco memorabilia, collecting old radios, kitchen appliances and jewelry boxes.
The Beach house spoke to his appreciation for streamlined aesthetics. He said, “This house has eyebrows and round windows, it’s shiplike in design.”
Seeing a blank canvas filled with potential, the out-of-towners snatched it up for a little more than $1 million in 2013 and spent six years renovating the historically designated residence.
Now, the owners are ready to part ways with it given Miami’s sizzling housing market. Seeing demand and feeling confident in their noted renovation, they are putting the house on the market Friday for about $5 million more than what they paid for it.
Chetcuti and Evans listed their 1301 Lenox Ave. house for $6.75 million. In 2016, Chetcuti sold the multimillion-dollar automotive supplier Quality Metalcraft Inc., which makes car parts for companies like Cadillac and Chevrolet. Evans is the head of his namesake interior design firm Kyle Evans Design.
The Henry Maloney-designed spread includes 5,100 square feet on a corner lot on Lenox Avenue. Built in 1936, the two-story home sits walking distance to Lummus Park and Flamingo Park. It has four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a two-car garage and pool.
Chetcuti and Evans remodeled the house — which had no cabinetry, toilets or sinks when they bought it — to have high-end kitchen appliances, a hideaway coffee bar, at-home spa with a massaging tub and a Brazilian Lago Seco marble, oversized shower.
They are ready for a new fixer-upper project in Miami, said Evans, while splitting their time between Miami and Northern Michigan.
“We love a good project,” he said. “We are big fans of Miami Beach. It’s time to do something different.”
The ideal buyer will have to “appreciate history, architecture and impeccable design,” said Danny Hertzberg, the listing agent and a sales associate with the Coldwell Banker Realty-associated Jills Zeder Group.
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“We wouldn’t have bought the house, unless it was preserved. Another developer would have come in and knocked it down,” Chetcuti said.
Despite an ongoing battle regarding historic preservation in Miami Beach between property owners, preservationists, developers and city officials, Chetcuti said of historic buildings, “To us that’s the appeal of South Beach.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated that Michael Chetcuti is CEO of automotive supplier Quality Metalcraft Inc. He ran it until selling the firm in 2016.
This story was originally published March 18, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
