We lived around the corner from Pat's and Geno's about a decade ago, and occasionally found ourselves on the 700 block of Latona Street.
Every time we walked that block, we wondered about the unusual 706-724 Latona St., a property we jokingly referred to as "the compound." It's like nothing you'll see anywhere else in town, with a mere three homes and a staggering amount of open space behind a metal gate. A zen garden takes up about half of the property, and it includes an actual koi pond, with fish swimming around having a grand old time. The rest of the space is paved, providing easy parking for the residents.
Like we said, it's like nothing else in town. And it's probably not long for this world. We recently learned that the property, which takes up a little more than 13K sqft, is listed for sale. The asking price is $2.2M, which we'd say is a wee bit high, but then again parcels of this size don't typically become available in desirable parts of town. According to the listing, the property includes the three homes plus an additional ten buildable lots. We didn't spend too much time trying to verify this, and acknowledge that ten homes could be possible, but only see the potential for eight additional homes. It should be noted that any project that happens here will have to go before the community and the ZBA, since the parcel is hilariously zoned for single family use. So while ten homes might physically fit on the property, the community will still need to sign off on the additional density.
While awesome in its current state, the property is certainly not experiencing its highest and best use. It's likely that a developer will soon snatch it up and build a bunch of homes here, wiping away this unique bit of neighborhood fabric. Though rather unlikely, it's possible that a wealthy person will fall in love with the property and the wonderful outdoor space, and maintain the property is its current condition or maybe just add a couple of new homes on the eastern end. Maybe you, good reader, are that wealthy person? C'mon, you know you always wanted a koi pond!