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Homes

Assisted living in lavish setting

The house has been gutted and refurbished for clients who can afford more than $3,000 monthly.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published July 2, 2004

HYDE PARK - From the street, the 1920s-style house begs a closer look.

Maybe it's the color, sunflower yellow, or the fat curls of fishtail trim or the big front porch with wicker furniture and ceiling fans to match.

The sign over the steps says "the Abigail."

What looks like an exclusive women's club at 320 S Delaware Ave. in South Tampa is actually a new, high-end, luxury assisted living facility for the elderly.

The two-story, 5,500-square-foot home - gutted and exhaustively refurbished - will open its doors for business next week. It stands as a labor of love for Estelle Lopez, her son, Manuel Rodriguez Jr., her 81-year-old mother, Hilda Rodriguez, as well as their large, extended family.

There's even a house dog, a dapper, manicured teacup Yorkshire terrier, Chico Rodriguez, which unexpectedly grew to 10 pounds and loves to sleep in Hilda's lap.

One Tuesday in June, Nelson and Elaine Pena, Estelle Lopez's great-aunt and uncle, stopped by to visit and admire their handiwork at the Abigail.

"What do you think?" asked Nelson Pena, 76, who, along with Elaine, 72, spent weeks helping to hang oil paintings and arrange antique furniture. Estelle Lopez's nephew, Justin Torres, 20, a student at Hillsborough Community College, also helped with the interior design, which by all accounts, is amazing: crystal chandeliers, hardwood floors, Oriental rugs and plenty of well-chosen antiques.

"I just have a knack, I guess," Justin Torres said, calling the completed decor, "a combination of a Victorian and Old World look."

Each bedroom exudes a different style, from French country to French provincial. Estelle Lopez and her son Manuel shopped for years for the house, combing auctions, estate sales, home shows and local furniture stores for exactly what they wanted. Little touches such as granite countertops, generous crown molding, large ceiling medallions and mocha-colored Mediterranean-tile in the bathrooms give the house a deeply luxurious feel.

An open, family-style commercial kitchen features hanging pot racks, stainless steel appliances, and baskets of onions and potatoes that aren't for show. Estelle Lopez and her mother, both serious, lifelong cooks, teach their staff their recipes for spaghetti sauce, black beans, chicken and rice and Spanish bean soup.

"I tell them (the staff) what to buy for the cooking and I don't like a messy kitchen," said Hilda Rodriguez, who also taste tests the food for too much salt.

One of eight children born to Ybor City cigarmakers, she learned at a young age how to keep a spotless house. Heart surgery and Parkinson's disease haven't made her any less particular. She's a stickler for the little details, such as starched and ironed clothes.

"And I also like to see a bed made real well," she said. "You can have the most expensive bed in the world, but if it's not made well, it looks awful."

Full of cooking tips, the mother and daughter speak with authority as they tell a visitor why the linguine with clam sauce fell short of expectations the night before (not enough garlic) or how to pump up any sauce (a tip of a teaspoon of sugar) or how long to cook spaghetti sauce (one hour, no more).

"People meet my mother and fall in love with her," Manuel Rodriguez Jr. said of Estelle Lopez. "She hugs and kisses them, cries with them, and suddenly they are like a new family member. That's how it is with us, residents are just an extension of our family."

Estelle Lopez will live in the Abigail with her mother in an upstairs apartment. She opened her first upscale assisted living facility with her son in Town 'N Country more than a decade ago. A second one in Lutz soon followed. She named them the Alexa and Austin House for her two grandchildren.

The Abigail is for the grandchild she never had.

"I've just always loved the name," she said.

A former training director for Pizza Hut in Puerto Rico, Estelle Lopez has also run a wallpaper store and cooked for family restaurants. Her real skill is in management and hiring good people to work for her, she said.

She disdains shoddiness and poor working habits, a loathing that prompts her to hire employees without backgrounds as nursing assistants, training them herself first and then sending them to school.

"People who have already worked as CNAs other places pick up bad habits that I can't break," she said. "I prefer to start new."

The Abigail stands in the footprint of the former house. The front porch and the exterior look identical to the original house, creating the feeling that the structure is in-scale to the lot and appropriate for the old neighborhood.

The family closed on the property in January 2000, paying $165,000 for the house. Manuel Rodriguez likes to joke that the real cost came later.

"Essentially, everything you're standing on is new," he said of the restoration efforts, which included more than doubling the home's square footage.

Though the neighborhood is zoned for residential, multifamily use, he said, the effort to open the Abigail was an "uphill battle."

"At the time we bought it, anything on the north side of Swann was considered less than desirable," said Manuel Rodriguez, a licensed general contractor with a background in interior finishing, design planning, drywall and wall covering.

Property was going for $150 a square foot rather than the $400 a square foot homes were fetching a few blocks away.

Although the home - which caters specifically to clients with Alzheimer's and dementia - was replacing another assisted living facility that had stood in the same spot for years, "everything that could go wrong, did," Manuel Rodriguez said.

Issues over everything from alley use to setback requirements delayed Tampa City Council approval until May 2003.

The Abigail officially opens this month. The home is licensed for 17 clients and already has a waiting list.

The cost? A monthly $3,250.

They're hoping to cater to clients in South Tampa.

Neighbors seem to appreciate the beauty of the restoration job. The yellow house now has a meticulously groomed front porch and glamorous entrance it hasn't known since the flapper era.

"This is my son's dream," Estelle Lopez said. "For what we paid to put this here, we could have put two in north Tampa."

- For more information about the Abigail, call Estelle Lopez at (813) 293-0178.

[Last modified July 1, 2004, 11:25:16]