A waterfront mid-century modern home in Oviedo built in 1976 for Dr. and Mrs. John Hodgin is on the market for the first time, after five decades spent entirely within the Hodgin family. The two-story, two-bedroom, two-bathroom house at 291 Maple Court sits on a 0.73-acre lot with 30 feet of pond frontage in Seminole County's Mead Manor neighborhood, listed at $675,000.
The home was designed by Harry Merritt Jr., who taught in the University of Florida's School of Architecture for 35 years, and its debut on the open market is being handled by Dominic Persampiere of Optima Real Estate, according to Orlando Weekly. Per the listing, the Hodgin Residence is the design Merritt was most proud of throughout his career. That career output was small by design: over his decades practicing in North and Central Florida, Merritt completed roughly 30 custom residential homes and 40 commercial buildings, according to WUFT News, making any surviving Merritt house a scarce find for buyers.
The property carries unobstructed views of an Old Florida landscape and includes a large enclosed courtyard, features the Orlando Weekly report ties to Merritt's broader emphasis on surrounding landscapes in his residential work. Inside, the home features native Florida cypress finishes, custom kitchen cabinetry, floor-to-ceiling glass, polished concrete floors, and a stone breezeway with a brick fireplace, per Homes.com. The listing's per-square-foot value works out to roughly $298 across the home's 2,266 square feet, per Zillow.
A Design Rooted in the Sarasota School
Merritt's architectural lineage traces directly back to some of Florida's most influential postwar modernists. He studied under Paul Rudolph and Walter Gropius, and earned his Master of Architecture from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, according to the Orlando Weekly report and corroborated by the University of Florida Special and Area Studies Collections. Born in North Carolina in 1929, he served as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Korea from 1951 to 1953 before completing his Harvard degree in 1955.
Rudolph personally recommended Merritt to work with Sarasota School architect Gene Leedy in Winter Haven in 1955, before University of Florida Dean Turpin Bannister recruited Merritt to join the faculty in 1960, according to Modern Gainesville. That connection to Leedy and the Sarasota School shows up in the Hodgin Residence's Ocala block construction and floor-to-ceiling windows, hallmarks the outlet notes across Merritt's homes. Merritt went on to earn a Lifetime Achievement Award from the university in 2012, in recognition of his 35 years on the architecture faculty.
Archival Record and Preservation Status
The Hodgin Residence is documented in the University of Florida's Harry Merritt Papers, an archival collection that preserves the architect's works dating back to 1954. The original design drawings and historical records for the home are held within that collection at UF's George A. Smathers Libraries.
The Florida Division of Historical Resources has evaluated the home as potentially eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, though it currently holds no formal landmark protection. That distinction matters because Merritt's surviving residential work has occasionally reached the same threshold before: his 1964 Weil-Cassisi Residence in Gainesville was nominated to the National Register in April 2015 after hitting the standard 50-year eligibility mark, per WUFT News. Whether a future owner of the Hodgin Residence will pursue similar landmark status, or whether the property could eventually face redevelopment pressure common to unlandmarked mid-century homes in suburban Seminole County, remains an open question.
Comparable Merritt Sales
The Hodgin Residence's $675,000 asking price closely tracks another recent Merritt sale. In December 2025, the 1966 Haynes Residence in Gainesville, a Merritt design featuring redwood siding and Ocala block built around a 350-year-old live oak, was listed for $699,000, according to Hooked on Houses. The similar pricing across two rare Merritt homes, one in Central Florida and one in North Florida, suggests a consistent market value for his limited residential output. The Hodgin Residence has been maintained as a single-family home throughout its history, and its listing marks the first time the property has ever changed hands outside the Hodgin family.
