In all of Grand Harbor's storied history — a community that has been building and evolving along the western banks of the Indian River since 1988 — there has never been a residential offering quite like Laguna Village. This is the first new direct riverfront subdivision developed in Vero Beach in many years: twenty-five custom home sites arrayed along the Indian River / Intracoastal Waterway, seventeen of them with their own seawall and approximately 100 linear feet of direct river frontage, each with views across the water to permanently protected preserve land that will never see development.
The developer called it, simply, an extraordinary site. The brokers called the views 'extraordinary and untouchable.' The buyers who have already claimed their positions in Laguna Village called it, in the most direct terms available, the home they had been looking for. And Ben Bryk of Vero Premier Properties, who knows Grand Harbor's new construction landscape better than any active agent in the community, has written that Laguna Village's riverfront villas are 'expected to set new price benchmarks for the community' — a judgment that reflects both the quality of the construction and the scarcity of what this site delivers.
What Laguna Village offers is something that Grand Harbor — for all its extraordinary amenities, its two championship golf courses, its private Beach Club, its world-class tennis, its 144-slip marina, and its entire resort-at-home lifestyle — has not previously provided at this location, in this form, with this construction quality: a brand-new home, built to the very highest contemporary codes and standards, on a private Intracoastal lot, within the gates of one of Florida's most celebrated private club communities. The opportunity to own a position in Laguna Village is not one that recurs. These twenty-five home sites are the entirety of what the community will ever be.
25 CUSTOM HOME SITES ON THE INDIAN RIVER | 17 DIRECT RIVERFRONT LOTS · ~100' FRONTAGE EACH | 4,035+ SQ FT · UP TO 4BR / 6BA COASTAL ESTATES | $2.7M+ STARTING PRICE · GRAND HARBOR'S FINEST TIER |
THE SITE
Laguna Village's 4.2-acre parcel on the Indian River is one of the most significant pieces of real estate in Grand Harbor's development history — a site that combines direct waterway frontage, the security of the gated community, the amenity world of Grand Harbor Golf & Beach Club, and, critically, the permanent protection of the land across the water that ensures the river view purchased today is the river view owned for life.
The Indian River Lagoon — one of the most biodiverse estuaries in North America, recognized globally for its ecological richness — stretches wide in front of Laguna Village, and the land that constitutes the view from the community's riverfront homes is owned by Indian River County and the Indian River Land Trust. It will never be developed. The wooded preserve across the Intracoastal that Laguna Village homeowners look out upon from their waterfront lanais is not a temporary visual amenity dependent on a current owner's decision not to build — it is permanently, legally, and irreversibly protected.
This is a distinction of enormous practical significance that experienced riverfront buyers understand immediately: the difference between a waterfront view that is beautiful today and one that will be beautiful in thirty years. At Laguna Village, the answer to the question 'what could be built across the water?' is definitive. Nothing. The county and the land trust own that land, and its protection is not a matter of current intention but of permanent legal status. Laguna Village's views are, in the precise and meaningful language of the brokerage team, untouchable.
"Homeowners will hear the river lapping among the reeds at the bottom of the seawall when they are on their waterfront lanais and be able to look out across the Intracoastal Waterway, with its parade of beautiful boats and bottlenose dolphins, to wooded preserve land on the far shore. The views are extraordinary and untouchable. All that land is owned by either the county or Indian River Land Trust and will never be developed."
— Kristin Casalino, Dale Sorensen Real Estate
The site itself — 4.2 acres of Intracoastal frontage within a master-planned 900-acre community — has been carefully planned and permitted as a residential enclave that complements the broader Grand Harbor environment without competing with it. A state-of-the-art stormwater management system ensures that Laguna Village's development is environmentally sound and consistent with the Audubon Certified stewardship that has characterized Grand Harbor since its founding. In a community that has maintained an Audubon International Cooperative Sanctuary designation since 2001, the ecological integrity of new development is not incidental — it is a condition of the Grand Harbor identity.
THE HOME SITES
Laguna Village's 25 home sites are divided between direct riverfront lots and interior sites — two distinct opportunities within the same exclusive enclave, each with its own character and its own appeal to a different buyer's priorities.
Riverfront Home Sites 17 LOTS · ~100 LINEAR FEET FRONTAGE EACH The 17 direct riverfront lots of Laguna Village represent the most coveted real estate currently available within Grand Harbor — and among the most coveted riverfront positions available anywhere in Indian River County. Each lot carries approximately 100 linear feet of Indian River / Intracoastal Waterway frontage, with private seawalls that put the homeowner at the water's edge in the most literal and most personal sense. The Indian River laps at the reeds below the seawall. The parade of boats, the dolphins, and the wide, protected preserve across the water are the view from the waterfront lanai. These are not merely lots with river access. They are sites where the primary orientation of the home — its architecture, its living spaces, its outdoor areas — can be organized entirely around the water, in the way that only direct riverfront construction permits. The new homes on these lots are designed with exactly that principle: to maximize the river view from every major space in the home, and to create the most complete and continuous connection to the Intracoastal that modern coastal home design can produce.
| Interior Home Sites REMAINING LOTS · BRING YOUR OWN BUILDER The interior home sites of Laguna Village — not fronting the river but positioned within the same secure, beautifully landscaped enclave as the riverfront properties — offer the flexibility and the opportunity of custom construction within Grand Harbor's most exclusive new development. These lots are available for buyers who wish to bring their own builder and create a home tailored to their precise specifications and lifestyle requirements. For buyers who want the new construction quality, the Grand Harbor address, and the community pool and clubhouse that all Laguna Village residents share, but who prefer to design their home from the ground up rather than choose from among completed models — the interior home sites provide a rare and genuinely valuable opportunity. The same concrete block construction standards, the same impact glass and metal roof requirements, and the same Grand Harbor architectural review process that govern the riverfront homes apply equally to homes built on interior lots, ensuring that the community's quality and character are maintained consistently throughout.
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THE CONSTRUCTION
In a Vero Beach riverfront market where 20- and 30-year-old homes are being offered at $900 per square foot, Laguna Village's new construction provides a genuinely compelling argument for quality at value. 'We start under $800 per square foot for brand new, concrete block homes that have the finest finishes and meet all the latest codes,' said Rita Curry of Dale Sorensen Real Estate — a statement that reflects both the exceptional pricing of the riverfront homes and the exceptional quality of the construction standards applied throughout Laguna Village.
Concrete Block Construction
Concrete block (CBS) construction is the Florida building standard that provides the greatest structural integrity against the forces that Florida's weather demands most — wind, moisture, and the long-term effects of a marine environment. Unlike wood-frame construction, CBS homes do not expand, contract, or rot in the humid Florida climate, and their mass and density provide superior hurricane resistance that has become the standard of discerning Florida coastal construction. Every Laguna Village home built by A&R Meridian is concrete block throughout.
Metal Roof — The Gold Standard
Metal roofing has emerged as the definitive choice for Florida coastal construction — outperforming traditional tile and shingle roofs in longevity, storm resistance, and energy efficiency. A metal roof on a Florida coastal home provides the homeowner with the most reliable storm protection, the lowest maintenance profile, and an architectural character that complements the coastal contemporary design language of Laguna Village's homes with a material authenticity that manufactured alternatives cannot replicate. The insurance savings on a metal-roofed new construction home in coastal Florida are themselves substantial.
Impact Glass — Full Protection
Impact-resistant glass throughout — windows and doors — provides the most complete protection against the debris-driven forces of a major storm while eliminating the operational complexity of storm shutters and the visual interruption of corrugated panels. Impact glass is the standard for new construction in Florida's coastal building codes, and its integration into Laguna Village's homes from day one means that residents enjoy both full protection and full views simultaneously, with no preparation required before a storm and no cleanup after.
Icynene Insulation
Icynene open-cell spray foam insulation is among the most effective thermal and moisture barriers available to residential construction — providing superior energy efficiency, exceptional sound insulation, and a sealed building envelope that dramatically reduces the energy costs of maintaining a comfortable interior temperature in Florida's climate. Combined with the thermal mass of concrete block construction and the reflective properties of a metal roof, icynene insulation completes a building envelope designed to perform at the highest possible standard throughout the life of the home.
THE VALUE CASE
The case for Laguna Village's value proposition is made most efficiently by Rita Curry of Dale Sorensen Real Estate, who has been selling real estate in Vero Beach since the 1970s and who brought this site to market: existing riverfront homes on Vero Beach's barrier island — 20 to 30 years old, needing maintenance, not built to current codes — were asking $900 per square foot. Laguna Village's brand-new, concrete block, impact glass, metal-roofed homes on the Indian River were being offered at under $800 per square foot. Brand new versus aging. Current codes versus outdated standards. Maintained by you versus turnkey by the builder. The value arithmetic is not subtle.
Developer Shane Acevedo offered a broader geographic comparison: 'It is essentially a less expensive Jupiter. Vero is just as beautiful and desirable as Jupiter, but homes on the river like the ones we are building in Grand Harbor would be three times as much down there.' The premium that southern Florida's most celebrated coastal communities command for riverfront new construction is, in Acevedo's direct experience, approximately triple what Laguna Village asks for a comparable product. The difference is not quality — it is the market, and the market in Vero Beach has been catching up with its peers at a rate that makes timing in Laguna Village a genuine consideration.
Ben Bryk's own market analysis, published in early 2026, notes that Indian River County led the entire United States in all-cash home sales at 62.7% in 2025, and that in the true luxury tier — $1M+ gated enclaves like Grand Harbor — all-cash transactions routinely reach 65% to 90%. The buyers who move into Laguna Village at its founding pricing tier are making purchases in a market where cash dominance insulates values from interest rate fluctuation, where supply is genuinely and permanently limited, and where the underlying quality of the product — direct Intracoastal frontage, brand new construction, permanently protected views — creates the conditions for long-term value appreciation that experienced real estate investors specifically seek.
LIFE ON THE RIVER AT LAGUNA VILLAGE
The seawall is fifteen feet from the waterfront lanai's railing, and the Indian River at six in the morning has the quality of a held breath — that moment just before the day asserts its intentions, when the surface is undisturbed and the light is arriving at the low angle that makes wide water luminous rather than simply reflective. The preserve across the water is still in shadow. A brown pelican glides low over the channel, its wingtips within inches of the surface in the drafting flight that makes pelicans look simultaneously effortless and miraculous.
The coffee is hot. The lanai is covered, with the ceiling fans turning at their lowest useful speed. The sound from below — the water at the reeds, the gentle give of the seawall against the mild morning current — is the specific acoustic signature of a riverfront home that those who have lived in them never quite forget and always miss when they leave. It is not a dramatic sound. It is a continuous, low, entirely pleasant reminder that the river is there, and that it belongs to this house in a way that no marina slip or community dock can replicate.
A sportfisherman moves upriver toward the Sebastian inlet, its wake spreading wide and reaching the seawall in a gentle series of laps that rock the reeds and momentarily disturb the pelican, who rises without apparent effort and resets three hundred yards further along the bank. Two dolphins surface briefly in the wake, then disappear. The preserve across the water absorbs all of this without response, its tree line unchanged, its undevelopable character a permanent and reassuring fact.
This is the morning at Laguna Village. The golf cart will be needed shortly — the tee time is at nine, and the practice putting green at Grand Harbor's club is a three-minute ride. But the lanai holds. The river is doing what it always does: existing beautifully, offering everything, asking nothing. The seawall was built for exactly this — for exactly this posture, this morning, this view — and it will be offering the same thing to the person who stands here in thirty years.
"Twenty-two multi-million-dollar detached riverfront villas represent one of the most exclusive residential offerings in Grand Harbor's history. These waterfront properties are expected to set new price benchmarks for the community."
— Ben Bryk, Vero Premier Properties, 2026
GRAND HARBOR CLUB MEMBERSHIP
Laguna Village homeowners own their residence within Grand Harbor Golf & Beach Club's master-planned community, with Grand Harbor Golf & Beach Club membership available in Golf, Tennis, Sports, and Social categories. Membership is not mandatory, but for the Laguna Village buyer who has chosen this site in part for the full resort-at-home lifestyle that Grand Harbor's extraordinary amenity program provides, membership transforms a magnificent riverfront home into the complete, comprehensive, daily luxury living experience that the community is celebrated for.
Two championship golf courses — the Joe Lee River Course and the Pete Dye Harbor Course, recently renovated to the highest standards — are accessible by golf cart from Laguna Village. The private Atlantic Beach Club, recently renovated at a cost of $3 million, provides the ocean counterpart to the river that is the immediate neighbor of the Laguna Village home: the ability to begin the day at the seawall watching the Intracoastal and end the afternoon at the Beach Club watching the Atlantic is a daily range of water experience available at no other address in Vero Beach. The 144-slip deep-water marina — positioned elsewhere in Grand Harbor — provides additional boating capability for Laguna Village owners who want a separate berth beyond the private dock access that their riverfront seawall already permits.
The 32,000 square foot Mediterranean clubhouse — with Spoonbills for breakfast, the Pete Dye Grill for dinner by the fireplace, the Shell Dining Room at the Beach Club for seafood and sushi with the Atlantic in the background, and the Grand Main Dining Room for the most formal and celebratory of evenings — provides a dining program of genuine quality under Executive Chef Rico. The VBITO professional tennis tournament each January, drawing 100+ WTA players from 36 countries, brings world-class competition to courts within the community. The social calendar that animates the Grand Harbor year — the galas, the wine dinners, the themed events, the sporting tournaments — provides the community life that a great private club is intended to produce.
WHO IS BUYING LAGUNA VILLAGE
Laguna Village attracts a buyer with a specific and self-aware set of requirements — someone who has looked at Grand Harbor's full range of residential options, from the condominiums and golf villas to the established riverfront estates, and concluded that what they want most is what only Laguna Village can provide: brand-new construction, on a private Intracoastal lot, with permanently protected views, in the only gated community on Vero Beach's mainland that offers a truly complete luxury resort lifestyle. This is the Grand Harbor buyer whose priorities are simultaneously the highest quality of construction and the most irreplaceable position in the community.
The Riverfront New Construction Buyer
For the buyer whose requirements are defined by two simultaneous non-negotiables — brand-new construction and direct waterway frontage — the Treasure Coast provides very few answers. And for that buyer within the Grand Harbor context — wanting the new construction paired with two championship golf courses, a private Beach Club, and a world-class club lifestyle — Laguna Village is the only answer. It is genuinely the only place in Grand Harbor where these requirements can be satisfied simultaneously, and the only new riverfront construction available in Vero Beach at this quality level.
The Grand Harbor Upgrade Buyer
For the current Grand Harbor resident who has lived in the community and loves it — who has enjoyed the golf, the Beach Club, the tennis, the social life, and the Audubon Certified natural beauty — but who has always wanted to be on the river itself rather than adjacent to it, and who specifically wants the clean slate and the long-term peace of mind that brand-new construction provides, Laguna Village represents the upgrade that Grand Harbor has not previously offered. The same community. The same club. The same lifestyle. The river at the seawall.
CLAIM YOUR POSITION
Laguna Village at Grand Harbor will not be repeated. When the twenty-five home sites are built out — the seventeen riverfront lots and the interior sites — the development is complete, and the combination it represents (brand-new construction, direct Intracoastal frontage, permanently protected preserve views, within Grand Harbor Golf & Beach Club) will not be available again at this price point or perhaps at any price point. The Indian River Land Trust and Indian River County own the land across the water. A&R Meridian is building the homes. Grand Harbor Golf & Beach Club is the community. The window is now.
Ben Bryk and Vance Brinkerhoff of Vero Premier Properties are uniquely positioned to guide buyers through every aspect of the Laguna Village opportunity — from evaluating the available completed homes and vacant lots, to understanding the HOA structure, the club membership options, the flood zone and seawall considerations, and the Grand Harbor architectural review process for custom builds. They know the community with the depth of genuine specialists and the access of the community's most active and most recognized real estate team. They are ready for your call.