ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – One of the most expensive home sales in St. Johns County history is making an impact far beyond the housing market.
A Ponte Vedra Beach estate recently sold for 20 million dollars, but former owner Rick Sontag isn’t taking home a penny.
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Every dollar from the sale is going toward brain tumor research, a cause rooted in one of the most painful chapters of his life.
“It was a no brainer for me. I mean, what am I going to do with more cash in my pocket when I have a foundation that can use that and help build the resources,” Sontag said.
Entrepreneur Rick Sontag spent years building a life in the sprawling oceanfront estate and even longer fighting to save the person he built it with, his wife Susan.
“We started building the house around 1990. Together, we designed it together, we built it together and it was our joint project. We were going to move into our family home. Then in June of 1994, my wife had a stroke and subsequently was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. So that was our welcome home, that new home,” Sontag said.
Doctors gave Susan a life expectancy of about three years.
“That’s what I was told. And I got her into a clinical trial over here at Mayo Clinic. Miraculously wound up living 28. Believe it or not, it was a total miracle,” he said.
After selling his Jacksonville-based aerospace company, Unison, to GE in 2002, Rick and Susan used their success to create The Sontag Foundation.
What started as a personal mission has grown into one of North America’s largest private funders of brain tumor research.
“Since 2014, we are proud to say we have helped over 6,000 patients around the United States find their way to treatment,” Sontag said.
The foundation has invested millions in scientific research while helping patients and caregivers connect with specialists, clinical trials and support through the Brain Tumor Network.
Rick continued researching treatments and helping Susan navigate experimental therapies before her passing in 2022.
“She came out with paper wrapped and in it was this big portrait. It was a portrait of her. She said I want you to remember me, the way I was,” he recalled.
Now the home where their story began is helping write its next chapter.
Instead of benefiting from one of Northeast Florida’s most valuable properties, Sontag turned it into a multi-million-dollar gift, one that will help researchers search for better treatments and hopefully one day, a cure.
For Sontag, the sale isn’t the end of a chapter.
It’s a way to ensure that the home he shared with Susan continues supporting the cause they built together.
To learn more about The Sontag Foundation and the Brain Tumor Network, click here.