Home Elevators in Sarasota: Inside Professional Lift Solutions

What does it actually take to add an elevator to a home, whether you are building new or retrofitting a house you already love? I get asked some version of that more often than you might think, so I went to find out. Professional Lift Solutions sells, installs, and maintains home elevators right here in Sarasota, with over a decade of experience and around fifty employees, and I sat down with owner Grant Talkie to walk through it all.

Why Everything Is Done In-House

The first thing I asked Grant about was how he staffs installs, because in a lot of specialty trades the company selling you the product is not the one showing up to install it. Subcontracted labor is common, and it is where scheduling and accountability tend to fall apart.

Grant’s answer was clear: everyone at Professional Lift Solutions is an employee, with no subcontracting, and that includes the construction side of the work. Because they control their own crews, they can tell a client the actual date and time their team will be there. As he put it, they want to control the project from start to finish. Anyone who has waited on a subcontractor who never shows will understand why that matters.

Why More Florida Homeowners Are Adding Elevators

A big part of the answer is aging in place. Grant described a situation I see constantly: someone built a beautiful two-story home in their thirties or forties, when the knees worked better, and now a bad back or a hip has changed how that staircase feels. An elevator can extend how long someone can happily stay in a home they love rather than forcing a move.

It is not only about aging, though. Convenience, accessibility for visiting family, and long-term functionality all come into it. And in a region with plenty of elevated coastal construction, there are simply more homes where stairs are part of daily life.

The First Question: Does It Make Sense?

This is what I appreciated most. Grant’s first consideration is not which product to sell you, it is whether an elevator makes sense for the house at all.

Sometimes there is a natural placement that works beautifully. Other times you are trying to shoehorn something into a space where it just does not work, and it will not add any property value. An honest installer will tell you which one you are dealing with. The second consideration is matching the right product to the actual need, since getting someone comfortably up a flight of stairs is a different problem than accommodating a wheelchair.

Vacuum Elevators: The Retrofit Answer

For existing homes, the product that surprised me most was the vacuum elevator. Most people have never heard of them, and they solve a real problem.

These units from Pneumatic Vacuum Elevators need no recessed pit and are completely modular, so they can fit into a remarkable number of homes. They run entirely on air pressure: no gears, no grease, and no hydraulic fluid. That simplicity shows up again later when we get to maintenance.

• The PVE52 is the full-size model and the one that fits a wheelchair, with an automatic door operator that opens and closes on its own.
• The PVE37 is a two-person model and one of the most popular. It is large enough for you and a dog, or two people, without eating up an entire room, and it can sit neatly beside a staircase.
• The PVE30 is the smallest, which Grant jokingly calls Grandma’s elevator. It goes into spaces where most people would never imagine an elevator could fit.
• The Cube is the newest, a square design rather than round. A cylinder wastes a little floor space, so the square format fits into a 36-by-36-inch footprint, still narrow enough to come through a doorway, while reclaiming usable space. It is rated for two people and has a fold-down seat, and it can go through a floor or open onto a balcony landing.

New Construction: Traction Elevators and Hoistways

If you are building from scratch, the options widen considerably. Grant showed me a Garaventa Elvoron, a gearless traction elevator that uses a counterweight system, with a custom glass cab and custom glass doors. It is a stunning piece of equipment.

The key difference is the hoistway. In new construction, your builder frames the shaft as part of the house, so a traction elevator slots right in. In a retrofit you usually do not want to build a block wall or dig a recessed pit, which is exactly why the vacuum models exist.

That is a planning point worth taking seriously early. On high-end builds an elevator is increasingly designed in from day one. The Longboat Key home I toured recently, which I covered in this inside look at a one-of-a-kind luxury build, features a cylinder elevator paired with a cantilevered staircase as a centerpiece of the design. Deciding early means the elevator becomes architecture rather than an afterthought.

A Lift You Can Walk Under

One more clever option was a through-the-floor lift called the Luma, which the team was still installing in the showroom. When it rises, two structural posts on either side support it, and you can actually walk underneath it. In a home where that footprint needs to double as a hallway or give access to a room or storage beyond it, that is a genuinely smart solution.

Customization and Everyday Details

The showroom has sample cabs set up so clients can see options in person rather than from a brochure. At the builder level you might have a manual accordion gate you open and close yourself. Step up and you can get an automatic gate that opens and closes on its own, which Grant pointed out is a real convenience when your hands are full of groceries.

Beyond that, there are different woods, call and send stations, accent colors, and lighting to choose from. Seeing it all in person makes the decisions much easier.

What It Costs

I asked the question everyone wants answered. Grant’s figures, as of our conversation: the elevator itself typically starts north of $30,000, and some simple options or upgrades take that to $35,000 or $40,000 quickly. Across their product range, prices run from about $30,000 up to $200,000, depending on things like custom glass and weight capacity.

The number I found most useful: including construction, electrical work, and the elevator, their average project runs about $50,000 to $55,000. Every home is different, so treat that as a starting point for a conversation rather than a quote.

Maintenance

For the vacuum elevators, Grant recommends service twice a year, and much of that visit is simply cleaning and checking the safeties, since there are no gears or fluids to deal with.

The more mechanical traction products get the same twice-yearly recommendation for typical use. Homes that use theirs heavily may do better with quarterly service, and commercial clients sometimes go monthly. On the other end, for a summer home used only a month or so a year, once a year is usually enough. It all depends on how much the elevator actually gets used.

How to Get Started

Grant says they do not have one perfect client. They hear from homeowners, builders, and, interestingly, a lot of real estate agents whose clients are selling or buying and trying to solve the stairs question.

Evaluations are free. They send a representative to look at the home, review the layout, and walk through the options, most of which people have never heard of before. That is the right place to start before you assume a house will or will not work.

Why This Matters in Real Estate

I see the stairs question derail home searches regularly. A buyer loves a two-story home but worries about the next twenty years, or a seller has a beautiful house that is hard to market to a buyer pool that increasingly wants single-level living. Knowing that a home can be retrofitted with an elevator, and roughly what that costs, changes those conversations completely.

If you are building, it is one more reason to involve your team early, which I talked through with an architect in my conversation about building a custom home in Sarasota. And if you would like to see a finished new build, take a look at my Gracewater tour.

Let’s Talk

Thanks to Grant for showing us around Professional Lift Solutions. If you are weighing whether a home will work for the long run, or you want to plan for an elevator in a new build, I am happy to help you think it through and connect you with the right people. Reach out any time, browse the areas I know best on my communities page, and find more local business conversations on my video page. Watch the full tour above, and subscribe on YouTube so you catch the next one.

Pricing and service recommendations reflect Grant’s figures at the time of filming and vary by home, product, and options. Contact Professional Lift Solutions directly for an evaluation and current pricing.