This old beauty showed up on a Face Book group about historic Tampa and I was delighted to see it. Back in the Fifties, my orphaned first cousins Ken and Logan lived there with their maternal grandmother Lula Logan-later Lula Broneer when she married an archaeologist.
I visited my cousins now and then. They had a pool table and a pinball machine in the front parlor, and Logan did his best to show me the elements of pool and pinball.
I wish I'd paid more attention to that amazing house. I mainly remember being awestruck at the two outdoor stairs. It had once been a place of some magnificence--do I remember a defunct fountain in the front yard?
Looking at this picture, I wonderful if it began as a straightforward two-story house and then acquired those two spectacular wings, fore and aft.
I'm pretty sure it's given way now to a high rise. The large lot on the Bayshore would have been irresistible to a developer.
I kinda don't even want to know.
5 comments:
The verandahs, especially the one on the left.
A southern classic. Where I grew up, in upstate SC, there were several properties that dated back to the pre-Civil War era, and they looked very much like this.
What an amazing old house. So glad you remember going there and playing pool and pinball! But also remembering a fountain! Bayshore Blvd. is suffering from the loss of it's unique charm!
Quite a house and like you said only known now through its photo.
That's such a familiar pull... that feeling of peering through that hazy glass at a place from childhood. Florida especially, IMHO, hung on to so much past for so long in the mid 20th century as other parts of the country swelled post war. But by the 60s people were really pouring in to buy air cooled homes and stay year round. We used to gawk at the abandoned hulk of the Forest Hills country club, just 40 years past it's 20's boom. Then one night in the early 60's it burned to the ground. I strained to remember it..like a face I'd neglected to pay attention to.
Post a Comment