Matt Morgan Offered $10 Million for Merrywood

The attorney and Winter Park resident said he would like to preserve the house. The real estate agent for the sellers said the offer was too low.

July 6, 2026

By Beth Kassab

Matt Morgan, the Morgan & Morgan attorney who lives in a home on Winter Park’s Historic Register, said he made a verbal offer of $10 million last year to purchase the entire Merrywood lot with the intention of preserving the nearly 90-year-old estate that is significant because of its age and as the largest and most ornate home built by architect James Gamble Rogers II.

Morgan’s offer wasn’t included in the information provided to the City Commission before the elected board took its first vote June 24 on the fate of property. The commission voted 3-2 (commissioners Elizabeth Ingram and Warren Lindsey dissented) for a change to the land development plan that would allow for the 3.67-acre lot to be split in two without requiring a condition recommended by city staff that the existing home be placed on the city’s historic register.

Lakefront lot splits are generally prohibited by Winter Park, which is why the amendment to the comprehensive plan is required. The change requires a second vote after the state takes 45 to 60 days to review the amendment, which means the next time the City Commission considers the matter will likely be in August.

A greenlight for the lot split would pave the way for the old house to be demolished — a demolition permit is already active and set to expire Aug. 31 — and two new lakefront homes to be built in its place.

“They [the City Commission] heard there’s no other options … yes there is,” Morgan told the Voice after reading news stories about the vote. “If I see a bulldozer pull up to that house and I didn’t say something, it would bother me.”

Commissioners were told that more than 100 people toured Merrywood and not a single person was willing to purchase and preserve the home because it was too expensive, required too much work or both. Commissioners heard about the attempts to market and sell the estate from one of the sellers as well as the prospective buyer who has the property under a contract that is contingent on the lot split receiving final approval and the real estate agent who represents them both.

Morgan walked through the home with Mick Night, the Sotheby’s real estate agent handling the transaction, nearly a year ago in early August just as the property became available. Morgan said that a short time later he sent Night a voice memorandum communicating a $10 million offer that he says was not contingent on a lot split and with the intention of preserving the home. By the time Morgan heard back from Night, he said it was early September and Night told him that that the property went under contract shortly after Morgan toured the estate.

That contract belongs to Tara Tedrow, the land use attorney with the Lowndes law firm who grew up next-door to Merrywood and applied for the comprehensive plan change that would allow the lot to be split in two so that she could build a home for her family on one portion while the other is sold.

Night confirmed that he received a verbal offer from Morgan last year, but said $10 million was too low for Cathy and Raymond Gilmer, the siblings who inherited the property when their parents, who had lived in the home since 1977, died.

“That was not a number the Gilmers, last summer or anytime since then, have ever been open to selling the property for,” Night said. 

Night declined to give the price of Tedrow’s contract on the lot. During a public city work session on June 22 he estimated the land value of the lot to be in the range of $13 million.

Night told the City Commission that, while he never listed the home on the MLS, more than 100 people toured the property, including what he estimated to be 15 to 20 people qualified to make such a high-dollar purchase and that none offered to preserve Merrywood.

“All left the property shaking their head, hands in their face,” Night said during a June 22 work session with the City Commission. “They just don’t see it. We haven’t had traction with one buyer.”

Two days later at the regular Commission meeting, Mayor Sheila DeCiccio asked Night: “Is there anyone interested in purchasing that home?”

He replied, “The answer is no. Not one of the viable buyers, much less anyone else, left that house and said, ‘Wow, there’s so much potential here.'”

Night told the Voice on Monday that his comments at the commission meetings intended to convey that he didn’t receive what he considered to be “bona fide offers.” 

“There have been many offers,” he said, but none have been “anywhere near reality” on price. 

At one point in the June 24 meeting, Tedrow suggested that the price of the Merrywood portion alone would be about $12 million if the lot was split. It’s unclear how that figure is reconciled with Night’s estimate that the land value of the entire lot is about $13 million.

Morgan said if the city allows the lot split without assurance that the house is preserved then “the city gives everything and gets nothing in return.”

“If the city voted to allow this, they are voting to allow all residents to split lots in the future and get nothing in return,” Morgan said. “It would be one thing if there was some type of meaningful consideration for the city in exchange for the lot split, most notably, preservation of a very important historic home to the city. However, as currently contemplated, in my opinion — the buyers would likely make a meaningful profit and the people (the city) would get nothing in return.”

Morgan isn’t inexperienced when it comes to historic homes. He spent $10.5 million in 2022 for a house that sits on about 3 acres on Winter Park’s Lake Maitland, according to property appraiser records. The 1926 home was designed by Maurice Kressly, another notable local architect, and was placed on the city’s historic register in 2002 by previous owners. It is larger than Merrywood at about 10,000 square feet.

He told the Voice that his original $10 million offer for the entire Merrywood lot still stands and that he made a second $5.5 million offer on Friday to purchase a portion of the lot and preserve Merrywood.

“I think it’s important to the community that the home not be torn down,” Morgan said in a text message to Night on Friday that he shared with the Voice. “For that reason, I am offering to purchase the Merrywood estate for 5.5M. We can split the lot at 1.835 acres each parcel and the current contingency contract holders can build their home on their 1.835 acre lot. I will make a covenant to the city that I will not tear the house down … Alternatively, my offer for 10 million for the entire parcel stands.”

It would be difficult or impossible, according to documents filed with the city and public discussion, to split the lot exactly in half with a straight line from Palmer Avenue to the lake without removing a portion of the Merrywood house that was added on in the 1960s as well as a portion of the swimming pool.

Morgan said if he purchased the entire lot he would also want the ability to split it in the future, but his interest didn’t hinge on that.

“I said of course I’d love that optionality [of a lot split] if I could get it, but it’s such incredible land and such an incredible house that wasn’t a contingency for me,” Morgan said. 

He agreed the home is in need of a lot of work and would be expensive to restore. He said if he was the buyer he would look to renovate Merrywood over a number of years and not right away.

The chairman of the board of Friends of Casa Feliz, a group that advocates for preservation and worked with Tedrow and Night to get the word out about the house in hopes of finding a buyer, said news of Morgan’s offer is “extraordinarily encouraging.”

“It demonstrates what many preservation advocates have said from the beginning: Merrywood can be saved, and there is a real market in Winter Park for significant historic properties,” said a statement from Chairman John Bill.

He urged the City Commission to make saving Merrywood a condition of the approval of a lot split.

“To reward the demolition of this resource, now that there is a demonstrated buyer, with a change to our comp plan without requiring designation, would be unconscionable,” the statement said.

At the end of the discussion during the June 24 commission meeting, Tedrow said the sellers were willing to wait until the next vote before they demolish the house even though they are permitted to do so anytime.

DeCiccio said the agreement would “give another 45 to 60 days for someone to come forward for that property and purchase it and designate it historic so we’re buying more time.”

It remains to be seen if Morgan’s offer will be enough, if another buyer will step forward or if Merrywood will be the latest Gamble Rogers house to be reduced to photographs in an archive.

Night and Morgan are planning to meet to discuss the property.

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