[Auto] On Tierra Verde, the ‘Auto Trader’ compound is for sale

[_Happy boy]

Stuart Arnold liked cars. He liked them so much that in 1973 he started a unique publication called Auto Trader, full of ads with photos that made it easier to buy and sell cars. But as that original 15-cent magazine grew into Traders for boats, planes, motorcycles and bargains of all sort, netting Arnold a fortune, he was able to indulge another passion: yachting. He began buying waterfront lots on then lightly developed Tierra Verde so he would have a place to park his sumptuous vessels — including one floated by barge from Italy — and host what became legendary onboard parties.

Now, four years after Arnold’s death, his family is selling six of those lots. One has a tennis court and another an ’80s-era home that could be razed or, as Arnold did, used as a guesthouse and weekend getaway. Priced at $10.9 million, the six-lot parcel has enough space to build several new homes and dock two boats longer than 100 feet.

“This is one of the largest, most unique waterfront properties ever offered in the Tampa Bay area,” says Jennifer Zales, a Coldwell Banker agent who is listing the property with Arnold’s granddaughter Fallon, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and herself a Realtor.

Daughter-in-law Valerie Arnold said Arnold was “eccentric, very generous, kind and giving. He loved to watch others have a good time and never would you know how much stress or pressure he was under. His energy went into being the ringleader of a good time.”

Those boisterous good times on Tierra Verde and at Arnold’s homes in Las Vegas, Key West and Clearwater stemmed from hard work and hustle.

By the time he was in his 30s, Arnold had owned a bar in his native Bronx, edited a powerboat magazine in California and done marketing for a South American airline (where he met his first and only wife, a flight attendant).

In 1973, to be near his parents, who had retired to Florida, he applied for a job selling used car ads for the St. Petersburg Times. But the interviewer kept him waiting so long that he left, went to a nearby art supply store and bought what he needed to cobble together a new magazine: Auto Trader.

Driving around in his VW, Arnold snapped pictures of cars for sale and sold ads for $4. The ability to show what a car looked like for the price of a few photo-less lines in a classified newspaper ad proved so po[CENSORED]r that Auto Trader immediately began making money. Arnold and son Stuart Jr., who was helping him, soon moved from a tiny rented office in Treasure Island to the magazine’s own building in Largo. And the good times began to roll.

As a youth, Arnold had learned to sail on Cape Cod and while attending boarding school at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg. Flush with the success of Auto Trader, he began buying boats and docking them at a marina on Tierra Verde. But as his zeal for boating grew, he acquired nearby waterfront lots with a house where he could stay on weekends, the boats a few steps from the back door. (His main home was an 8,000-square-foot Victorian in Clearwater.)

Stuart Arnold liked cars. He liked them so much that in 1973 he started a unique publication called Auto Trader, full of ads with photos that made it easier to buy and sell cars. But as that original 15-cent magazine grew into Traders for boats, planes, motorcycles and bargains of all sort, netting Arnold a fortune, he was able to indulge another passion: yachting. He began buying waterfront lots on then lightly developed Tierra Verde so he would have a place to park his sumptuous vessels — including one floated by barge from Italy — and host what became legendary onboard parties.

Now, four years after Arnold’s death, his family is selling six of those lots. One has a tennis court and another an ’80s-era home that could be razed or, as Arnold did, used as a guesthouse and weekend getaway. Priced at $10.9 million, the six-lot parcel has enough space to build several new homes and dock two boats longer than 100 feet.

“This is one of the largest, most unique waterfront properties ever offered in the Tampa Bay area,” says Jennifer Zales, a Coldwell Banker agent who is listing the property with Arnold’s granddaughter Fallon, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and herself a Realtor.

Daughter-in-law Valerie Arnold said Arnold was “eccentric, very generous, kind and giving. He loved to watch others have a good time and never would you know how much stress or pressure he was under. His energy went into being the ringleader of a good time.”

Those boisterous good times on Tierra Verde and at Arnold’s homes in Las Vegas, Key West and Clearwater stemmed from hard work and hustle.

By the time he was in his 30s, Arnold had owned a bar in his native Bronx, edited a powerboat magazine in California and done marketing for a South American airline (where he met his first and only wife, a flight attendant).

In 1973, to be near his parents, who had retired to Florida, he applied for a job selling used car ads for the St. Petersburg Times. But the interviewer kept him waiting so long that he left, went to a nearby art supply store and bought what he needed to cobble together a new magazine: Auto Trader.

Driving around in his VW, Arnold snapped pictures of cars for sale and sold ads for $4. The ability to show what a car looked like for the price of a few photo-less lines in a classified newspaper ad proved so po[CENSORED]r that Auto Trader immediately began making money. Arnold and son Stuart Jr., who was helping him, soon moved from a tiny rented office in Treasure Island to the magazine’s own building in Largo. And the good times began to roll.

As a youth, Arnold had learned to sail on Cape Cod and while attending boarding school at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg. Flush with the success of Auto Trader, he began buying boats and docking them at a marina on Tierra Verde. But as his zeal for boating grew, he acquired nearby waterfront lots with a house where he could stay on weekends, the boats a few steps from the back door. (His main home was an 8,000-square-foot Victorian in Clearwater.)