About MaryElizabeth

MaryElizabeth has an individualized approach and is passionate about helping her buyers and sellers reach their goals. An intent listener, she quickly recognizes their varying needs and approaches each need as if it were her own. She is an expert in business negotiations and presentation and has earned great trust and respect from the community of Sarasota through her proven professionalism, honesty, and integrity, and her unwavering commitment to excellence.

As the daughter of a local Real Estate Broker, MaryElizabeth has been no stranger to the world of Real Estate. She grew up around the Sarasota Real Estate industry, usually attending closings or showings on her way to ballet. In her adolescent years, she began assisting with Real Estate tasks. After a successful professional ballet career and more than a decade devoted to her position as the President and Artistic/Executive Director of Florida Ballet Arts Academy and the Florida Ballet Arts Ensemble, she decided to leap into Real Estate in 2013.

MaryElizabeth has brought her business acumen and sharp attention to detail that she's been so greatly respected for with her to her real estate career, ensuring that her clients' needs are fully met when buying or selling their homes. She has listed and sold high-end luxury properties, waterfront homes & condos, golf course communities, deed-restricted and non-deed-restricted communities, new construction homes, historic homes, and starter homes. She has a personal passion for vintage and historic homes and hopes to see more preservation of these fine properties throughout the community.

As a resident of Sarasota since 1980 and a local business owner since 2000, MaryElizabeth has a wealth of information about the area and all it has to offer. She has earned the prestigious designations of Luxury Property Specialist for Coldwell Banker Global Luxury Realty, Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist (CLHMS™) from the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, has been recognized as a Million Dollar GUILD™ member of the Institute, was awarded the Five Star Professional Award for 2022, 2023, & 2024, and has earned the International Diamond Society Award, representing the top 10% of Coldwell Banker® agents worldwide. She is a member of the REALTOR® Association of Sarasota and Manatee (RASM), the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), NAR Global Business Council, Suncoast Regional Young Professionals Network (YPN), MOAS, the Sarasota Chapter of Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), is the Founding Director of Imaginique Contemporary Ballet, a professional performing company, and is the proud mom of a Ringling College of Art + Design graduate.

In addition to her 40+ years in Sarasota, MaryElizabeth has resided across the United States in her native Southern California, North Carolina, New England, and the Washington DC Metro Area. The proud daughter of a career Marine Corps Officer, she lived as a military dependent for 23 years, has resided on three Marine Corps bases, and has traveled the country throughout her ballet career as a professional dancer, choreographer, ballet master, and audition coordinator and conductor.

 

Intently focused on her career from a young age, MaryElizabeth left her home, family, and friends in Florida at the age of 16 to further her ballet training at Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts in New England where she devoted 60 hours per week to training and rehearsals while attending a local New England high school. She graduated at age 17 and immediately embarked upon her professional ballet career.

 

At the age of 24 with a tiny baby just born, her entrepreneurial spirit shone when she put her performing career on hold and set out on a mission to save a 40-year-old landmark business that had crumbled. Upon reopening the doors to the historic studio - Florida Ballet Arts - after the previous owner had abandoned the business, MaryElizabeth single-handedly resurrected, restructured, and grew the business by 835 percent within the first five years with the majority of her clientele coming through word of mouth for more than a decade.

 

She simultaneously revived the Florida Ballet Arts Foundation, a non-profit organization, which was able to provide scholarships to promising students in need of financial assistance, while also providing holiday cheer to the retirement community through mini-performances to residents of nursing homes and complimentary Nutcracker performance tickets to many citizens living in assisted living facilities, also coordinating transportation to the theaters with the facilities' administration. She earned great trust and respect as a young dynamic business owner and creative who consistently turned visions into reality - visions that others saw as impossible, and demonstrated sharp negotiation skills in everything from union stagehand contracts and theater rental contracts to long-term commercial leases.

 

Never shying away from a challenge, she and her son lived bicoastal from 2008-2009. While simultaneously running her own dance academy and performing company locally, she served as Ballet Master to San Diego Ballet and UNITY Dance Ensemble / UNITY LA, managing to make 15 roundtrip commutes in a 12-month span between Sarasota and San Diego, while also squeezing in time to train fitness patrons of Semper Fit aboard Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego.

 

MaryElizabeth continues to be highly sought after to dance organizations while pouring an equal level of passion into her Real Estate career, assisting both buyers and sellers with a wide range of properties and price ranges. Whether consulting clients, coaching dancers, operating multifaceted businesses, producing cutting-edge performances, or writing and negotiating real estate contracts and marketing properties, MaryElizabeth stands for nothing short of excellence in every aspect of her professional life. When working with her, she will always make sure your needs and goals take center stage.

As a highly respected real estate specialist and Broker in Sarasota and Manatee counties for the past 42 years, Peggy brings a wealth of knowledge on local communities, market conditions, and the home buying and selling process. An expert in her field, her keen ability to price and market properties effectively coupled with her sharp negotiation skills have kept her highly sought after by homebuyers and home sellers year after year. 

 

Since beginning her professional Real Estate career in Sarasota in 1981, Peggy has garnered the distinction as a Multi-Million Dollar Producer, has earned designations as a Graduate of the REALTOR® Institute (GRI) and Certified Residential Specialist (CRS), and has been awarded the Five Star Professional Award for customer satisfaction thirteen times since 2009.

 

Community Affiliations And Service

An active participant in the community, Peggy has been a passionate member of Rotary International since they first opened the door to women in 1987. She served as President of Gulf Gate Rotary for two consecutive years, is currently a member of the Sarasota Rotary Club, and is a Paul Harris Fellow. The wife of a retired Marine Corps Officer, Peggy is a also a member of the Sarasota Chapter of Military Officers Association of America where she serves as a Surviving Spouse Liaison to other surviving spouses. Other offices held have included: (Secretary) Marine Corps Officers Wives Club, California; (Member) Overseas Officers Wives Club, Japan and Officers Wives Club, North Carolina.

Peggy was born in Scranton, PA, and grew up in Canton, OH. Her knowledge of marketing was cultivated in her early adult years when she worked for Roger Penske and handled marketing for Penske Racing during the time when legendary drivers Mark Donohue and Peter Revson represented the team. The only daughter among four kids in her family, all three of her brothers joined the Marine Corps and were assigned to the Air Wing. Through her eldest brother, she met her husband, a Marine Corps Officer and champion scratch golfer hailing from Chevy Chase, MD. Upon tying the knot, the couple was transferred to Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, CA where their two children were born. After base transfers and military retirement, the family made Sarasota their home in 1980. In 1981, Peggy became a licensed Real Estate Agent and in 1982, she earned her Broker license and blazed a trail in the Sarasota real estate industry with a front row seat to the many changes and developments here while remaining an industry leader through every type of market condition. When she's not busy working and serving on boards, Peggy is an avid player of Bridge at various clubs in town and enjoys time spent with family and friends. She is a proud mother to a son who is a commercial airline captain and a daughter who is a former professional ballet dancer and artistic/executive director who is now blazing her own trail as a highly respected and dynamic real estate professional. She is a grandmother to a talented entertainment designer and recent graduate of Ringling College of Art + Design and a loving dog mom.