A functional family of skin, fur, feathers and fins calls a cottage and tropical yard home.
By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published April 30, 2004
PALMA CEIA - Missy and Kenny Brazle love the back yard of their 1931, lemonade-yellow cottage for a lot of reasons. How could they not? Walk through near twilight on a spring evening and it's easy to slip under a spell.
They point out the soothing pond thick with indigenous Florida plants, the music from the waterfall, the chandelier dangling from the shade tree, the deck ideal for sipping wine and unwinding at the end of a long day.
Their yard's also big enough for a walk-in aviary, home to their beloved black-and-white African pied crow, Simon.
Missy, 30, an animal trainer at Busch Gardens in Tampa, was given the crow by her old boss at Disney's Animal Kingdom. Two feet tall and cartoonishly cute, Simon has arthritic hips and other health problems. So the Brazles built him an airy, screened home complete with a safety door and mosquito netting.
"When you stand in the aviary and look out, Simon has a great view of the pond, the best in the whole yard," Missy says. "He's wickedly smart. And it has to be entertaining for him to see fish swimming."
The yard, aviary and all, is showcased on the fifth annual Pondscapes Pond and Water Tour. The tour, which features roughly a dozen gardens and backyard ponds in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and then again May 8. Participants are asked to make a donation to the Humane Society of Hillsborough County. The past four tours have raised more than $15,000 for the organization and offered a glimpse of some of the area's most gorgeous water gardens.
The Brazles' garden, featured this Saturday only, is notable for a pond fringed with ginger, Macho ferns, star grass, iris and dwarf papyrus. The couple dug the 700-gallon pond themselves over a weekend after taking a free, do-it-yourself class at Pondscapes.
Like many homeowners on the tour, they plan to greet visitors and answer questions and may even bring out another adopted pet, a blue-front Amazon parrot named Murphy. The colorful bird, friendly and loquacious (try "Hi, Murph" and "Want a peanut?") was a gift from a terminally ill woman whom Missy befriended while working at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio.
"This type of bird lives to be very old, easily 70," Missy explains. "The owner was a cancer patient who wanted her to go to the right person, someone who would really take care of her."
Get to talking with the couple, newlyweds, and an hour easily stretches into two.
For one thing, Kenny, 40, is the son of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Alpha Brazle, who won 133 games for the Cardinals and pitched two World Series games in 1943 and 1946.
Kenny, a financial planner with a keen creative side - he designed everything from the kitchen to their platform bed - wears his father's World Series ring on his right hand. He also displays a collection of sentimental memorabilia in their home, including trophies, old photos and a collection of baseball cards featuring his dad.
Missy, a fine arts major at Ohio University and a talented artist, has raised animals since childhood. Her pets were mostly reptiles since she was severely allergic to mammals (she now takes medication that eliminates the problem). She worked her way through college as an animal trainer at the Columbus Zoo.
"My mother always told me to find a career that I really loved and that as a result I would never feel like I worked a day in my life. And that's so true."
Still in her Busch Gardens khaki shirt and matching Bermuda shorts after work on a Sunday afternoon, Missy describes her job training two baby cranes, driving park visitors to see the giraffes, and during the week, visiting elementary schools, something she loves.
The Brazles also own two shy cats, Misha and Cleopatra, a polite Boston terrier, Bailey, who rolls over with a hand command from Missy, and an endearing red rat snake, Paisley, which lives in a guest bedroom terrarium, basking beneath a heat lamp.
The couple bought the 1931 cottage on a sleepy brick street in Palma Ceia in October 2002. They paid $215,000 for the house, which needed little more than cosmetic tweaking and some cheeky decorating.
They painted, relandscaped, and built the deck and aviary. Kenny stained the deck and the aviary in a matching woodsy shade. He and Missy also built a small terrace where they can relax after work at night and light their candle chandelier in the tree branches.
"After the stress of a long day it's wonderful to come out here," he says.
Missy agrees: "There's nothing better than kicking your shoes off and relaxing in the garden after work."
South Tampa is their true love.
"I love this area, I love being close to Bayshore and my office," says Kenny, who lived for years in a condo across from the Kash n' Karry on Swann Avenue.
The Brazles found the house by chance. Driving around the tree-canopied neighborhood, they saw a For Sale sign.
"The sign went up on a Friday and by Monday morning we had put in an offer," says Kenny, who has since had "two or three offers for $260,000" but says they plan to stay put.
The 1,500-square-foot house exudes warmth without clutter. Animal print fabrics and Hemingway-inspired decor affirm the couple's love of animals. Copper cranes stand at each end of the fireplace. A batik print of a leopard hangs in the dining room. Indian fabrics cover the bed in the master bedroom.
The couple met a few years ago in Orlando, where Missy was working for a national company that trained birds and put on exhibitions. Kenny had no trouble adjusting to Missy's need to have a small, carefully tended menagerie of pets.
It's a smart and entertaining lot. All vie patiently for human attention during a long conversation. The parrot chatters and climbs down its perch trying to catch Missy's eye. The dog readily rolls and sits and follows the group from room to room. The cats slink about under the radar.
And Simon watches from his aviary, rearranging rocks and hiding his food. For Missy, he makes a noise that sounds remarkably like purring.
"It's his happy sound," she says. "He's building a nest for me."
If you go
The Pondscapes annual pond and water tour is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and May 8. Self-guided, it features about a dozen homes. Information packets available at Pondscapes, 4213 S Manhattan Ave. in Tampa. Cost is a donation to the Humane Society of Hillsborough County. For more information, call (813) 839-8062.
