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LAND O'LAKES - For years, the running joke among customers who greet Eve Johnson has been, "Where's Adam?"
It's an apropos reference considering that for the past two decades, Johnson and her husband, Manson, have run Eve's Garden along U.S. 41.
The business is a snapshot of paradise all right, with an 80,000-gallon koi pond, two sets of six-foot Foo Dogs flanking the front gates and thousands of the Johnsons' exquisite bonsai trees that have attracted the likes of Disney, FTD, Home Depot and Publix.
But the real Eden remains out of sight to the public, tucked away behind tall privacy fences, a little slice of heaven the couple slowly carved out for themselves since they bought the property in 1981.
A walkway beneath hanging moss leads to a serene seven-acre lake, ringed by bald cypress, their 1,300 feet of private frontage dreamy in the late afternoon light. Manson built the deck himself, standing in waist-deep water, driving 12-foot pilings into sandy lake bottom while Eve stood with a shotgun to shoo away startled alligators.
"When we first saw the property we didn't even know there was a lake back here," recalls Manson, now 52. The couple cleared the 11-acre parcel themselves, yanking dead orange trees, weeds and debris with a chain hooked to their Dodge van.
They live in a 4,000-square-foot house on the property, laid out according to the principles of feng shui, the ancient Chinese practice of arranging to achieve harmony and balance.
Over the entrance, the couple hung a small concave bagua mirror to drive away negative energy. To the right of the door, a trickling fountain welcomes in the good energy. Meditation pillows on the floor encourage mind clearing and prayer.
Everywhere, the smell of lavender induces calm.
"It's a way of simplifying life, becoming one with nature," Manson says of feng shui.
"Simplicity is what it's about."
The couple shuns materialism, joking that they've reduced their wardrobes to about three outfits a week. For Eve, it's navy-blue shorts, the red nursery T-shirt and sandals.
"Can you imagine getting up every morning and walking out to this?" asks Eve, 45. Her paradise includes banana, cherry, plum, key lime and mango trees, as well as a passion-fruit vine draped over the fence. There's even a hot tub. And a rowboat for twilight excursions on the lake.
"We don't have to drive to work - or anywhere if we don't want to. It's all right here."
The Johnsons, soul mates who teasingly quote Forrest Gump when describing their eccentricities to a first-time visitor, met while Manson was a graduate student at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
"I heard about a girl in Land O'Lakes, an artist, who made bonsai pots," he recalls. "When I got to her house, she was covered head to toe in clay."
Manson also recalls thinking that she looked a lot like a young Elizabeth Taylor and that he knew "she was the angel sent to me."
Eve says she knew in "five minutes" Manson was the man she would marry.
In 1979, a few years before hanging out a shingle on U.S. 41, they started their business raising bonsai, dwarfed, ornamental trees or shrubs grown in shallow pots or trays. They now think they are the largest grower of quality bonsai in the country, with 15 year-round employees (the figure doubles during the holidays) and a fully automated shipping system.
They built their current, four-bedroom, two-bath house in 1995 to replace the original house - a historic, 1920s summer retreat - that burned down in the early 1990s. The fire started when a fireplace log Manson was lighting exploded, burning his face, eyes and scalp and catching his sweat shirt on fire. As he ran from the house, he tripped on a garage step and hit his head on the bumper of their car, breaking his jaw and causing a concussion so severe that a resulting brain injury still affects his short-term memory.
"The fire was a fire of refinement," Manson recalls. "Imagine losing everything, your clothes, furniture, wedding pictures, the things that belonged to your past. I was a lot more materialistic before this happened; now I'm a better person. I know that life is a continuous path of struggle."
The Johnsons spent several years designing the new house, living in a 28-foot mobile home on the property as they fought with insurance companies. Eve incorporated built-in shelving and cabinets to reduce clutter - a feng shui no-no. She also wanted to make finding things easier for Manson.
"Originally, we had to put signs on everything for him," Eve recalls. "I needed to keep everything very simple."
The house includes a massage room, carpentry studio for Eve and a guest apartment with a fenced dog pasture.
The Johnsons are serious, internationally respected breeders of Rottweilers. Their dog, Champ, won Best of Breed at the Westminster Dog Show in 1997. They've taken home top honors from the American Rottweiler Society, and their dogs' frozen sperm remains in great demand in Australia, where one of their Rottweilers holds the title of "male champion top dog stud," Manson says.
"We've sold our dogs to famous athletes and movie stars," Eve explains. "International businessmen fly here in the private jets to buy them."
Manson bought his first Rottweiler in Germany when they moved to the property in the early 1980s as protection for Eve when he traveled.
"In those days, there was nothing out here, not even a McDonald's," Eve recalls. "There was a Shop N'Go, a hardware store and a two-lane road with a lot of holes."
Now the world comes to them.
They like to joke, they're as much in the real estate business as they are bonsai growers.
This paradise isn't forever. Five or 10 more years they say, that's it.
"This is the closest property to (State Road) 54 with this much frontage and depth on a lake," Manson says. "The land is becoming too valuable for just a nursery."
Keep your eyes open.
This Pasco Eden might just end up on the real estate market.
- My House is a feature about the people behind Pasco's housing boom. Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com