There’s a house in Manatee County where it seems time passes more slowly or pauses altogether. Tucked away on 30 acres along the Manatee River, the home shows off crisp Cape Dutch-inspired architecture, sprawling wilderness and a garden so lush it feels as if Mother Nature naps there. This is more than a home—it’s a lifestyle. 

When Doug Baker and his wife Lauren Crist found the property six years ago, it was exactly what they were looking for. “It reminded me of the Florida I grew up with,” says Baker, 63.

Built in 2021, the 4,489-square-foot main home is designed to make the best use of its surroundings, which include wetlands, a greenhouse, a lagoon, nature trails and a koi pond. Every window frames a different scene: the river, a sprawling preserve or ancient moss-draped oaks. The home’s style is elegant but unpretentious, striking a balance between sophistication and warmth. A 1,265-square-foot guest house, meanwhile, nods to the Sarasota School of Architecture.

“I’ve lived in everything from Carl Abbott designs to mid-century modern and contemporary,” Baker says. “I just love beautiful design. I don’t have a strong preference.” Baker and Crist, 65, have spent a lot of time in South Africa, where the couple fell in love with the Cape Dutch style, a look that mixes Dutch, German and French colonial styles with 17th-century South African touches—think whitewashed walls, ornate gables, thatched roofs, symmetrical facades and shuttered windows.

The home is centered around a spacious living area flanked by two wings. The east wing houses a gallery, a bedroom suite, a large study and Baker’s favorite spot—the library. Refusing to buy a Kindle, he’s filled the space with maps and an extensive collection of more than 1,000 books, including well-worn vintage travelogues. “Most are about places I’ve visited,” he says. “I’ve always been fascinated by the people in the 1800s who wrote travelogues or scientific books about the places they explored, so I collect those from different regions. I read them and then visit those places to see what they were writing about.”

On the west side, you’ll find another large bedroom suite, a study and a hobby room. Each wing has a staircase leading to its own garage, and on the first floor, between the garages, is a gym and a hobby room, both opening onto a covered terrace overlookingthe river.

In addition to the home and guest house, there’s a riverfront screened hut, affectionately dubbed the “fish shack.” That, along with a 60-foot dock, hints at another passion of Baker’s—fly fishing. Nearby waterways are home to tarpon, redfish, black drum and snook, and dolphins and manatees are common sights. “We see bobcats every week, deer, otters, ducks, ibis—there’s even a tortoise,” Baker says. “The wetlands behind the house are teeming with wildlife and positioned in a way so no one will ever build back here.”

In the greenhouse, Crist draws inspiration from the couple’s extensive travels to places like the South Pacific, New Guinea, South America and western China to cultivate exotic palms and plants. But both Baker and Crist are Sarasota natives. Baker’s father, who moved here in the 1980s, was the owner of Tropitone, a furniture business, but Baker says “he ran into financial trouble and sold me the business for a dollar. The next day, I owed the bank $2 million. But we turned it around.” Under Baker’s leadership, the company moved production to Asia. “It was the right time and place and, with some stupid luck, it grew,” he says. “Ultimately, we sold it in 2007.”

The couple bought the riverfront property in 2019 for $1.4 million and struck a balance between new construction and preservation. “We put in the roads and planted the trees, but we kept the native Florida plants and tried not to make it feel like shiny Longboat Key—where I’ve lived, too,” says Baker. “We wanted to keep it natural. There’s not much left like this. You wake up and all you see is nature.”

Baker calls the parcel “a piece of heaven,” but a recent medical scare encouraged him and Crist to put it on the market. “I want to focus on simplifying my life,” Baker says. “We want to buy another home locally that’s easier to manage and settle in the Bahamas, where it’s like Old Florida from the ’60s—laid-back and nice. The goal is to have a lot less and spend more time enjoying our friends, our kids and traveling.” 

Interested? Call Bev Murray, of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Realty, at (941) 724-4995.