Few Florida homes have inspired as much neighborhood mythology as the so-called “Holdout House,” a waterfront property said to have been guarded by an elderly woman who would appear on her rear balcony with a gun, warning off persistent real estate developers as tourist boats and shrimpers drifted past.
Its lasting fame, however, comes from something even more striking: the three-story residence remained standing as towering condo buildings rose around it, making it the lone single-family home that refused to give way.
At the center of the story was Mary Ackert, who became a fixture of local lore after she and her husband, Carl Wilken, built the house in 1963.
The Victorian-style home occupied a 0.3-acre parcel along Clearwater Harbor, offering highly desirable 180-degree views of the Gulf of Mexico. In a market hungry for waterfront development, the property soon became a prize coveted by builders.
For years, Ackert reportedly turned down huge offers for the land. Even when developers allegedly “accidentally” damaged the home’s water main or cut its power lines, she refused to budge.
When she did finally sell in 1986 for $133,200, it still was not to the developers who had long circled the property. Instead, Ackert sold the home to newscaster Joe Mannion, his wife Elizabeth and their four sons, with one crucial condition: they could not sell it to developers.
“I got many, many offers to sell my house, but I wouldn’t. It meant too much to me,” Ackert told the Sun Sentinel in 1979.
The Mannions honored that promise for the rest of their lives, and their sons — Joseph, Thomas, Robert and John — carried it forward after inheriting the family home following their mother’s death in 2018 at age 80.
One of the many legends about the infamous Florida ‘Holdout House’ include an old woman who would stand on her back balcony with a gun to chase greedy real estate developers away as tourist boats and shrimpers passed by
Thomas Mannion, pictured with his wife Marjory, says he believes the new owner plans on living in the three-story home, saving it from demolition
‘That was the agreement that we had with the original woman,’ Thomas, 56, who spent most of his childhood living there, told Our News Outlet. ‘Mary was a feisty person.’
The four brothers would finally place the house on the market once more in September 2023 for $7million.
They would eventually sell it for just under $3million last Fall to JRP Property Group, which is owned by James R Polacek, a real estate agent.
It quickly sent locals into a frenzy, wondering if the Holdout House would finally fall victim to demolition. Would a sparkling new condo building appear in its place?
Thomas, however, told Our News Outlet that he believes the new owner plans on living in the three-story home, saving it from demolition and carrying on Ackert’s wishes.
‘They’re not selling it,’ he said. ‘I think they moved in. It was going to be a flipped home, but I’m not exactly sure of that, but I know that they haven’t relisted it, and they did fix it.’
The Daily Mail has reached out to Polacek for comment.
Thomas said since the land was sold as a residential property and not a commercial one, there are height restrictions on what could be built on the land, as it would oppose the view of the condo buildings.
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But what the home is most famous for is eventually being surrounded by intimidating high-rise condo buildings and the original woman, Mary Ackert, refuses to sell her home
‘You can’t change it to the condominiums,’ Thomas said. ‘So, because of that, it limited some of the potential buyers from the condominium side.’
The home also suffered damage from Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida in September 2024.
When the brothers returned to assess the damage, their childhood home was full of sand that stacked up feet high, their furniture was gone, and there was plenty of water damage.
‘The refrigerator that we had wasn’t even there,’ Thomas told Our News Outlet. ‘No one could find it. It’s probably in the Gulf of Mexico someplace.
‘The windows were shattered and busted. And obviously, a lot of damage from the water, but it was so forceful with the water being feet in height. It took our furniture out, and we never found it. It wasn’t on the streets, wasn’t down the road. When the water recedes back to the Gulf of Mexico, it took all this stuff with it.’
Although the brothers received money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, it wasn’t enough to fully repair the house, which the brothers had been using as a rental property since 2020.
‘There’s another factor in that we had moved out of the area,’ Thomas, who is based in Atlanta, told Our News Outlet.
With the hurricane damage, in addition to the City of Clearwater restricting short-term rentals and only allowing a 31-day minimum, which cut into their profit, they decided it was time to leave their childhood home behind.
Hurricane Helene devastated Clearwater Beach in September 2024
‘You know, when my dad passed away, it was his death. When my mother passed away, it was their death. And it was just a house,’ Thomas told Our News Outlet.
‘And the house felt emptier and emptier over the years. You go home, it’s not quite the same.’
The halls that used to be filled with family photos were now pictures of pelicans for the guests to enjoy, and any resemblance to the home that holds his childhood is long gone.
‘So it kind of lost some of that homecoming nature to it. And then what it was, was a property that, you know, sometimes the brothers had disagreements on what we should do, how to fix it, should we paint the deck, should we change the deck from wood to a composite, and little knick-knack arguments.’
Growing up, Thomas knew he lived in a house of legends. When he went outside, he saw tour guides pointing from their boats as eager tourists lapped up the alleged stories about the four-bedroom, three-bathroom house.
From a distance, the gray house looks massive, but Thomas said it was a ‘relatively small house’ that is only around 2,000sq ft. It was a duplex when the Mannion family bought it, he said.
‘It looks a lot grander now,’ Thomas told Our News Outlet.
‘It was a small house from the 1960s. It had a relatively small kitchen, it did not have central air, so there were some issues, some core issues with that house, where the house’s legacy and traditions and how it looked far out exceeded the assumed value that some people had placed on that house.’
Like many, the brothers received FEMA money, but decided it wasn’t worth the money to repair the house. Picture is damage from Hurricane Helene in Clearwater Beach in 2024
A third floor was eventually added to the home, and it got a new roof, staircase and flooring. And it does have air conditioning nowadays. However, the last major redesign on the home was done in the mid-1990s, Thomas said.
But despite the legends, to Thomas, Holdout House was just home growing up, even if being associated with the property did give him a bit of popularity.
‘It gave you some street cred,’ he told Our News Outlet. ‘They have these boats come by and talk about your house. At some point, you’re just staring straight ahead. You’ve heard it so often. But then people would see you, and they would cheer, and they would clap, and it was always fun.’
But for four rambunctious boys, Clearwater Harbor was a place to play.
Thomas often went fishing in the harbor, where he would catch sharks and flounder and crabs.
The boys also went skimboarding, where one uses a small finless board and rides across wet sand and a thin layer of water.
‘That was all the craze in the 80s and 90s,’ he recalled. ‘Great memories.
‘It was hard to let that go, but obviously, things change over time, and this was one of them.’
