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A shrinking oasis

Branchton is Old Florida, a rural island in suburbia. But "progress" may mean the end of it.

By EMILY NIPPS
Published September 16, 2005

BRANCHTON - Early this year, Tammy Hines was feeling adventurous. A lover of the outdoors and a Tampa native, she decided to drive up Morris Bridge Road north of Wilderness Park, where she likes to bike and kayak.

She saw what most drivers see along the two-lane road. Cypress trees. Hanging moss. Swampy wetlands. Rickety mailboxes scattered here and there.

She decided to delve further, steering her white Mustang along the little gravel roads called Apache, Broken Arrow, Canoe and Taboo. She saw mobile homes, metal fences and lots of "No Trespassing" and "Beware of Dog" signs. She saw rusty cars, sleeping cows and piled heaps of junk.

Hines, an energetic mother of four who was working on getting her real estate license, drove until she came to the last dead end. Sitting there in awe, she had what she calls "a vision."

"My God," she remembers thinking. "These people have no idea that they're sitting on a gold mine."

Squeezed between the fancy million-dollar homes of Cory Lake Isles on the west, the protected Southwest Florida Water Management District land to the south and the soon-to-be housing development on K-Bar Ranch to the north, is the tiny community of Branchton. Some consider it part of New Tampa.

Branchton, however, is anything but new.

According to the area's unofficial historians - the many Branches sprinkled throughout the neighborhood - a man named James Branch settled there in the late 1800s, roughly a decade after the Civil War ended. He raised cattle and delivered mail a few times a month. He also started a family there, and the children's children of those children have not abandoned their roots. There's a whole pile of Branches, they like to say, and most live on the east side of Morris Bridge Road - as far from the suburbs as they can get.

Micah Hale, a 19-year-old great-great-great grandson of James Branch, is among the youngest generation of Branches living in Branchton. His mother, Brenda, is the daughter of Claude and Mildred Branch (the eldest generation of Branches), who live next door on Cedar Cove Drive.

In his messy bedroom, Hale has a Civil War saber, which he believes a Branch ancestor once used. He also keeps a hunting knife strapped to his belt loop, heavy boots on his feet and a camouflage baseball cap pulled over his shaggy blond hair.

Unlike his twin brother, who moved out of Branchton for a more civilized life in Brandon, Hale is perfectly happy chasing wild hogs in the yard, helping his father clean up the messes left by storms and working on one of the old Chevy trucks he owns. He works at Swan's Feed Mill in Zephyrhills and hopes to eventually become a full-time mechanic.

The city life going on a few miles to the west? It's not for him.

"I mean, I'm 19 ... I go to the movies. I used to work at Beef O'Brady's over there," he said. "But when you grow up in the city, you don't get to experience things."

Like killing your own food. Fixing a leaky faucet. Building a tree house, complete with electricity and running water.

"Lots of kids (in the suburbs)," he said, "they don't even know how to change their own oil."

Across the street from the Branches, things are happening. Behind a little Baptist church, bulldozers are clearing the way for townhomes.

About a half-mile north, Hillsborough County commissioners thought Jimmy Gardner's home and property (along with some properties south of him) would be better suited as an athletic park where New Tampa kids can play softball, baseball and soccer. They offered him $100,000 per acre. He told them to take a hike.

"They think we're so stupid out here," said Gardner, a 72-year-old retiree who sits on 8.2 acres. He also owns 42 acres on the other side of Morris Bridge Road, which he said he bought for $395 when he was 14 years old.

The 42 acres aren't for sale, but the 8.2-acre lot is, he said. He wants at least $200,000 per acre, which county Commissioner Ken Hagan said was "out of control." Hagan's father, Ken Sr., was the real estate broker trying to close the deal, and even after Gardner hung up on him last month, the elder Hagan still paid a visit to Gardner's home a few weeks ago to see if he might change his mind.

It wasn't the first time someone wanted Gardner's property, which is close to the well-developed corner of Cross Creek Boulevard and Morris Bridge Road. A few years back, both a doctor and a St. Petersburg developer asked about buying his land. Gardner set a price of $600,000 for the 8.2 acres.

"They both just jumped right on it," Gardner said. "That was back before I knew what I was doing."

Gardner opted out of the deal after realizing his property's worth. He's not giving it up until he gets the right price, and when that happens, he'll have to find someplace else to live. So will his pet bull, which would probably just as soon stay put.

Marty and Jane Comer, who live just north of the Branches on the east side of Morris Bridge Road, moved to Branchton 21 years ago. They liked that the 3.3 acres were zoned agricultural residential, meaning they can keep their cow, calf and 40 chickens. They also liked the peace and quiet.

"We have good neighbors," Marty Comer said. It helps that there's so much acreage in between houses, unlike the situation in the suburbs where "you can hear the guy next to you coughing and gagging on his toothbrush."

Comer remembers a time when Branchton felt like a real town, when people gathered at Branchton Baptist Church to discuss how to fight the county when it wanted to put a prison and a park in their back yards. Nowadays, it seems people have given up.

Branchton barely even has an identity anymore, Comer said. Branchton's borders seem to get blurrier and blurrier each year, and its population is hard to measure. The county government and post office consider it Thonotosassa.

It burns up Comer when he hears radio traffic reporters tell folks to take Morris Bridge Road to avoid traffic jams on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard or Interstate 75. The 55-year-old remembers a time when you could count 10, maybe 15, cars passing his house daily. Now the road is so busy, he can't even get out of his driveway at certain times of the day.

And while the Publix shopping strip on the corner of Cross Creek Boulevard and Morris Bridge Road is a convenient stop for groceries, Comer misses a time five years ago, when the spot was a cattle ranch.

"You could talk in a normal speaking voice and be heard 2 acres away," Comer said. "Now you can't hear yourself think from aisle to aisle with all the machinery and air conditioning going."

Comer has no plans to sell his property any time soon, nor has he gotten any offers. It probably won't be long, though.

"I've adopted a live and let live policy," Comer said. "I'm not going to fight what's going on because I don't have a prayer."

After Tammy Hines got her real estate license with Weichert Realty in March, she began approaching Branchton landowners. Some eyed her skeptically and turned her away, but to her delight, a good number of Branchton landowners seemed open to selling for the right price.

She believes the land west of Morris Bridge Road, bordering Cory Lake Isles and the soon-to-be Canterbury Gardens townhome development, is worth as much as $250,000 per acre, maybe more. In order for landowners to get top dollar, though, she needs them to come together and agree to sell as a group so the large lots are attractive to developers.

So far, she has two large assemblages of land with more than 20 property owners willing to list with Weichert. An owner of a fish farm that borders Cory Lake Isles and which has served as a roaming ground for emus, peacocks and goats for more than three decades is willing to go. So are some members of the Branch family who own property on the west side of Branchton.

On Weichert Realty's online listings, the 5-plus acres at the west end of Cross Creek Boulevard and Morris Bridge Road is priced at $2.3-million for a spot "ideal for pharmacy, fast food, restaurant, bank."

The Branchton assemblage of 18.3 acres Hines put together is listed at $5.3-million and the other assemblage of 15.8 acres is listed at $5.6-million. So far, Hines said, there has been a lot of interest in the properties but no one has made a solid offer yet.

Give it time, she said.

"It's an odd area, but it won't be in another six months or so," Hines said. "I truly think within the next two years you're going to see Morris Bridge Road get a CVS and a McDonald's."

Hines said she has fallen in love with the "wonderful, wonderful people" of Branchton and hopes if they decide to sell with her, they can at least make enough money off of their property to be able to buy nice homes elsewhere.

Most of her Branchton clients sit on only 1 acre, and a lot of them are attached to the rural feel of the land, the alligators grunting at night or simply the privacy. That's hard to put a price on.

"I heard the county wanted to put a park in there and offered something like $100,000 or $110,000 an acre," Hines said. "The county made fools of themselves, in my opinion."

Brenda Hale, Micah's mother and a proud part of the Branch family, can't imagine moving away from her home on Cedar Cove Drive. Her parents, siblings and cousins all live within a mile of each other. The day the Branches leave Branchton is the day Branchton becomes lost in history.

"How can you leave someplace where your granddaddy and his grandfather grew up?" she said. "I can't do it."

She has watched New Tampa encroach closer and closer, but knows it can't touch her side of Branchton. There are simply too many Branches standing in the way.

Micah, who will likely inherit some Branchton property if he sticks around long enough, also pledges to preserve his family's estate if he has any say in the matter.

"Money's important to me," he said. "It's important to all of us. But it's more important to me not to sell the only thing I know."

There also are those like Jimmy Gardner, who has no real family connection tied to his property but could not imagine selling out to someone underestimating his business sense. His $200,000-per-acre price tag is more than reasonable, he said, especially considering that "Morris Bridge Road will eventually look just like Bruce B. Downs" and his 8.2 acres will be right in the middle of that growth.

Some, like Commissioner Hagan and his father, might think it's foolish to turn away an offer of $100,000 per acre. Even at that price, Gardner could spend the final years of his retirement with a lot of money in his pocket.

"I could," Gardner said. "But where would I go?"

- Emily Nipps can be reached at 813 269-5313 or nipps@sptimes.com

[Last modified September 16, 2005, 16:37:28]