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Ozona aims for balance between new, old

The quaint town is slowly appearing brighter on the map, but residents and even newcomers don't want its charm to give way to growth.

By NICOLE JOHNSON
Published November 21, 2005

OZONA - A spiky-haired brunet in bubble gum pink velour and Gucci shades raves about a two-story log cabin for sale on Orange Street.

"I've always loved this little town," said Carol Berc, a local filmmaker notable mainly for purchasing Lisa Marie Presley's Clearwater mansion in 2001. "Everybody walks everywhere."

Ozona, a bucolic pocket of land north of Dunedin, has long been considered Pinellas County's best-kept secret.

But Berc's decision to turn her back on 8,200 square feet of glitz for 3,200 square feet of old-town America is a sign that Ozona may have finally been discovered.

"They want the dollhouse, the fabulous kitchen," said Stacey Perryman, an Ozona resident and a Realtor for Coldwell Banker. "But they also want the quaintness."

Berc's sale isn't final. But increasingly, people tired of strip malls and gated communities with long lists of rules and regulations are turning to Ozona for its leisurely pace and old Florida charm.

And businesses catering to a worldly clientele are also finding their way to Ozona.

In the last year or so, a European-Colombian fusion restaurant, a wellness center and a gourmet chocolate shop have opened in downtown Ozona, which has only a handful of businesses.

"The trees and quaint homes, it was so the right environment for developing this concept," said Anna Sweetnam, who opened the Conscious Connection a year ago.

The wellness center offers spa services including microrejuvenation facials and $100-an-hour acupuncture sessions.

Sweetnam originally purchased the building along Orange Street in the early 1990s. She sold it a few years later after renting space to an artist who left.

"They all wanted to be in Dunedin," she said.

About a year ago, she recognized charm where she hadn't before. She purchased the property again - this time for "considerably more," she said.

Longtime Ozona residents recognize a change in their community in some not-so-subtle ways: The expensive cars creeping down Orange Street. Loud music reverberating from new establishments. Minimansions rising where there used to be nothing, and property tax bills following suit.

In 2000, the value of the average Ozona home was $170,000. Today, it's $327,000.

"You used to not hear that (music)," said Nancy Hart, 68, who lives with her husband, Leon, 70, in a ranch house at the heart of Ozona with a sink in the back for cleaning fish. "But you do now. It's part of the change."

* * *

First settled in the late 1860s under the name Yellow Bluffs, Ozona existed largely as a community for orange grove workers and fishermen.

Years later, the name Yellow Bluffs would lose favor, tied too closely to the yellow fever epidemic. Townspeople named the little village Ozona, from the word ozone, which means "pure air." Several doctors in the North began recommending the area to patients for its soothing gulf breezes, thinking they cured some of the era's major illnesses, including malaria and tuberculosis.

Now, the children and grandchildren of those founding fishermen still call Ozona home.

"I grew up here; these are my roots," said Bill Walton, 42, a third-generation Ozona resident who operates the family construction business with his brother, Mike. "It's grown a lot, but it's still got that laid-back feel."

Laid-back with a touch of European taste?

Jaime Gazabon seems to think so.

A year ago, he and his wife, Angela Schiappa, opened the Caffe Dell' Artist. The cafe on Orange Street serves Italian and Colombian fare.

"We looked everywhere, but then we came here," Gazabon said in his heavy Colombian accent. "You feel like you are not in today's America; that's the part that we most like.

"And," he added, "they clean their plates."

Bucolic though it may be, some aspects of Ozona have long been popular.

Molly Goodhead's, an outdoor raw bar with the feel of a front porch, still ranks high on the list of hot spots with old Florida charm, even after 18 years in business.

"Molly put us on the map," said Peg Mahara, president of the Ozona Village Improvement Society. "Now you have people saying there's this pearl in the middle of the concrete jungle."

* * *

Ozona is facing the same balancing act as so many other small towns: how to welcome newcomers while maintaining the small-town charm that was so attractive in the first place.

"OVIS is exploring options for preserving the Ozona community's character and its identity both on a local level and by making contact with the new county-established historic preservation task force," Mahara said.

The task force, chaired by County Commissioner Ronnie Duncan, is charged with examining ways to preserve structures throughout the county that have historic value.

Mahara estimates there are almost 100 such structures in Ozona, including the 106-year-old steepled Town Hall on Bay Street.

"Change is inevitable," said Mahara, a Realtor. "You can't stop it."

But there are still parts of Ozona in which it seems time has stood still.

In the center of the village, unpaved streets play host to little Cracker-style homes side by side. Thick bamboo and drooping oak trees shade every step.

It is the same place that 1950s newspapers advertised for $950 a lot. Where patrons could go downtown to Turner's Market and pick out a piece of freshly butchered meat. Where men could make a good living off mullet and shrimp bait.

"We're trying," Mahara said. "We're really trying to keep that flavor."

--Nicole Johnson can be reached at 727 445-4162 or njohnson@sptimes.com

[Last modified November 21, 2005, 01:05:18]