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Although Mrs. Bertha Palmer spent winters in her Osprey home for only eight years, until her death in 1918, her extended family influenced the development of Sarasota County of decades to follow. One part that family included Major General Prince Michael Cantacuzene, Count Speransky, of Russia. The connection came through Palmer's niece, Julia Dent Grant, granddaughter of Ulysses S. Grant. Born in the White House, she grew up in Washington, D.C., and spent four of her teen years in Austria, while her father was ambassador there. On a later trip to Europe with her Aunt Bertha, Julia met Prince Michael, who was attached to the Russian embassy in Rome. After a short romance, they married in the fall of 1899 at Palmer's villa in Newport, Rhode Island, in a ceremony that was a major social event of the season. They moved to the Ukraine and began a family with son Michael and daughters Ida (named for Julia's mother) and Bertha.

Prince Michael, a member of the Russian Romanov family, was educated in military schools for members of the nobility, and served in a variety of diplomatic and military posts as a young man. At the outbreak of World War I he was a general in the Russian Army. As commander of the South Russia Cossacks, in 1915 he led 15,000 men in what has been called the last great cavalry charge against a fortified position in military history. Two years later he defended the Czarist regime against the communist revolutionaries, but with the collapse of the government, he and his family fled from St. Petersburg to Paris via Finland and Sweden. Julia later recounted that for the escape, she had sewed jewels and money into her clothing.

The Cantacuzenes came to Washington seeking support for a counter-revolutionary movement. With the death of the movement's leader, however, the cause faltered, and the family then came to Sarasota. The city was not new to Julia; she had visited her Aunt Bertha at The Oaks in the 1910s. Her mother Ida lived at the Acacias, a home on Sarasota Bay built by Ida and Bertha's aunt and uncle, Laura and Benjamin Honore. Bertha's two sons, Honore and Potter Jr., had remained in Sarasota after their mother's death and expanded their agricultural and business enterprises. They brought Michael Cantacuzene into the Palmer corporate structure and Sarasota's community life. He managed the 1200-acre Hyde Park citrus groves, helped organize the Palmer Bank when it opened in 1929, and became Vice President of the bank. After his death in 1955, local obituaries noted his extensive participation in community activities: American Legion, Elks, Kiwanis Club, County Fair Association, and Sarasota Chamber of Commerce.

Julia and Michael divorced in 1934. He later married Jeannette Draper of Sarasota. Julia expanded her professional life as lecturer and author. Although she continued to winter in Sarasota until the mid-1950s, she spent considerable time in Washington and Quebec and traveled extensively. Her articles appeared in the New York Times, Saturday Evening Post, and Woman's Home Companion. Her books included, "Russian People; Revolutionary Recollections," "Revolutionary Days; Recollections of Romanoffs and Bolsheviki, 1914-1917," and "My Life Here and There." Washington became her home, where she was a well-known hostess in the city's social circle and recognized supporter of the Republican Party. She died not far from her birthplace in 1975 at the age of 99

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