Former Major League Baseball player Travis Fryman and his wife Kathleen, have offered their long-held Molino estate through the Mark Lee Team of Levine Rinke Realty for $4.8 million.
After more than two decades in the house, they decided to move to Gulf Breeze and give their life together a new direction. Fryman bought the secluded property in the late 1990s and moved in in March 1999.
“As you get older, you just have to adjust,” Fryman said. “It was a little different having neighbors. We hadn’t had neighbors in 25 years.”
Located at 2600 Barrineau Park Road on 150 acres of mostly mature trees, this residence has provided the Fryman family with plenty of seclusion over the years and offers the opportunity for further development should the new owner so desire.
The house itself is more than 9,000 square feet and has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a fully finished basement.
There is also a nearby barn and several trails on the property that were often used during the time the family lived there. The barn is even equipped with a personal office that Fryman used, but it may be used for other purposes by the next owner.
“The idea was just to build a home with privacy where we could raise our family,” Fryman told the News Journal. “It’s really designed to enjoy the outdoors… a lot of elements of the house are designed to be able to enjoy the wooded property.”
Although Fryman was not born in Pensacola, he grew up here and was drafted out of Tate High School by the Detroit Tigers in 1987. In his professional career, Fryman played for the Tigers and Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) before retiring in 2002.
Even before retiring from professional baseball, Fryman set up this property to simultaneously meet the needs of his family and those of an MLB athlete, including installing a batting cage in the property’s barn.
To make the most of the surrounding nature, the interior of the home was designed with an open floor plan. Features include vaulted ceilings and French glass doors that allow plenty of sunlight inside.
This met his wife’s needs while also providing space for their sons to play and grow. Fryman himself maintained the trees, paths and other parts of the property for many years when he was not traveling.
Now that their three sons have grown up and moved out, the couple has decided on a new path for the next phase of their lives.
“I like to leave things in better shape than I found them. I felt like I wanted to get things the way they should be before I put (the house) on the market,” he continued. “We did the renovation with that in mind and tried to keep things neutral so that a new owner could bring their own taste or touch… we tried to keep that in mind when we made some of these decisions.”
Two residential construction projects were approved in July: Ensley and Perdido Key get more housing units after two projects approved in July
Stephan Vance, one of the property’s agents and a real estate agent with the Mike Lee Team, spoke with the News Journal about the value the home offers compared to other offerings in our area, as well as the versatility of the property.
“One of the most unique things that kind of sets it apart is that it has a fully finished basement,” Vance said. “It’s equipped with a professional gym, a kitchenette and sort of a media area. It’s a huge area downstairs, that’s not usually so common here, basements go unfinished in our area.”
According to Vance, the approximately 20 hectares that belong to the house will be divided into smaller parcels to allow for development without compromising the privacy of the new residents.
“It gives a lot of flexibility for someone who might want to do more with the property than we did,” Fryman said. “We’ve chosen to keep it as natural as possible and maintain as much privacy as possible. But of course there’s the possibility that someone could turn it into a family estate or something similar.”
