Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

They were moved to save a mansion

A couple spent $150,000 just relocating the house and are prepared to fork over an extravagant bundle restoring it. Why? "It was really a neat house."

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published August 31, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - The columned 1903 mansion that showed up one morning on an empty lot in the Historic Old Northeast quickly became the focus of curiosity seekers.

A few even lingered in the middle of the street one night trying to spot the ghosts that might have been disturbed when the old house was moved.

Ken and Elizabeth Grimes can understand the interest. For several years during their evening walks, they had admired the stately but rundown house at 245 Third Ave. N. What if they could buy it, restore it and make it their home?

Their dream is coming true. First, they got the house. Now they're on a monthslong effort to turn it into the elegant, historic home they envisioned. The endeavor has not been without its problems.

"There are times when we've thought, it's not worth it," said Ken Grimes, 42. "For one reason or another, the move was difficult. As we've taken the house back to where we needed, to get started moving forward, there's really been one unpleasant surprise after another. But we're at the stage now where we're moving forward and we're really very excited about living in it in a year."

The house had to make room for Bayway Lofts, a downtown condominium tower planned by developer Grady Pridgen. The couple got the house for free, but it cost $150,000 to move it to the vacant lot they owned at Eighth Avenue N and Third Street. Moving the three-story, 3,000-square-foot house was a lengthy process. But like the Pied Piper, the operation drew followers, one of whom was City Council member Virginia Littrell, an avid preservationist.

"I stayed out there till 2 o'clock in the morning," Littrell said. "That's such a unique piece of architecture."

The move, which took place in February, began during the day and wasn't completed until about 8 the next morning. Getting the house to its new site was just the beginning of a fresh set of challenges.

"Pretty much on the inside, we're gutting it and starting over," said Elizabeth Grimes, 41, a software application consultant for Kronos Inc.

The couple is working with Steve Buxbaum, a developer who has renovated other Old Northeast homes.

"We make everything look like it belonged in the house. We try to save what we can save. There's a lot of times we can't use the same materials," he said.

For the Grimeses' house, Buxbaum said molds are being made to duplicate the rusticated blocks of the original exterior. He's also stabilizing the exterior walls. The house is structurally sound, Buxbaum said.

"It's sitting on a new foundation. It'll be as good as new, actually better than new," he said. "From a builder's standpoint, it is an enormous challenge to try to keep the costs in line. It's great to have people like Ken and Elizabeth who take the financial risk and spend the money they need to spend. But when it's done, it's going to be a beautifully restored piece of history."

It is an expensive project, acknowledged Elizabeth Grimes, declining to discuss how much it will cost. "After renovation, if we were to sell it at that point, I expect we would break even, or maybe be at a little better point," she said.

"Obviously, we didn't do it for financial reasons. I guess that people who have a love of history and like to preserve the past could understand what we've done and understand why we've done it. It's just a beautiful house."

Her husband, regional vice president of Air Methods, a company that provides air medical transportation services, echoed her sentiments.

"It's funny, a lot of people ask us why we did it. For three years, I worked on a project in Venice, Italy, to restore, conserve and document public outdoor art, and people always said, "Oh, you must be so into art to go to Venice and work on this project,' " he said.

"And truth be told, although I appreciated all that, I just thought it was really cool to go to Venice. And this is much the same way with this house. I very much appreciate historic preservation and old things, but that in itself wouldn't be what motivated me to do it. What motivated me to do it is, I thought it was really a neat house and I thought it would be really nice to live in it."

The house has soaring columns and porches on the first and second floors. During a tour, Elizabeth Grimes said she envisioned having friends over for dinner and wandering out on the first-floor porch for conversation and drinks.

Built as a single-family home, the building probably is best known as the Monticello Apartments. Over the years, it had served as artists' studios, a clinic for alternative medicine, apartments, a rooming house and a facility for adult congregate living. Most recently, Littrell said, it had been abandoned. A 1912 postcard shows it during better times, as one of the city's notable homes. Ken and Elizabeth Grimes plan to restore the exterior to the way it looks on the postcard. The house has a twin of sorts at 166 Sixth Ave. NE, where Lew Brown, publisher of the Evening Independent, lived in the 1930s, according to a city directory.

Walking through the old house recently, Elizabeth Grimes pointed to elements that will be saved, such as the hardwood floors. The three fireplaces will be converted from wood burning to gas.

"A lot of it is being restored, but the interior is being modernized for modern living," architect Tim Rhode said. "It's one of my favorite houses in St. Pete. I thank Ken and Elizabeth for saving that house."

Times staffer Suzanne Palmer contributed to this report.

[Last modified August 31, 2005, 01:22:13]