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My House

Christmas has an extra glow here

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published December 8, 2005

NEW PORT RICHEY - What Pat Ballard likes most at Christmas in Longleaf is the way people do up their porches.

Not that she's one to just hang a wreath and switch on a light.

No way.

Last year Ballard, a high-energy 53-year-old grandmother with a sweet, Southern accent as melodic as wind chimes on a breezy Florida day, won third place in the community's holiday decorating contest.

And she was out of town at the time.

"I had it on a timer," she said modestly of her old-fashioned front porch and white picket fence festooned in swags of evergreen and fat red-and-gold bows she loops by hand the way her mother did back in Knoxville, Tenn.

"Decorations aren't something you do for yourself," she said. "They're for everyone to enjoy."

Up and down the streets of this traditional pedestrian community nestled off State Road 54 on a swatch of the Anclote River Ranch, front porches are bedecked with similar It's a Wonderful Life simplicity. In fact, come Christmastime, the community might well double as the town of Bedford Falls: Homemade wreaths, ropes of greenery and Christmas trees abound.

So do twinkle lights and charming window candles.

And visitors will soon have the chance to experience Longleaf at the holidays when the town hosts its first Fine Arts on the Village Green Friday and Saturday. The event kicks off Friday night with a free jazz concert in Pioneer Village Green Park and horse and carriage rides under the stars. Saturday features a juried art show, food vendors, live music, and even an art car for children to paint.

The goal, explains art show director Pam Marron is to gradually cultivate a high-quality fine-arts fair comparable to the annual Mainsail Arts Festival in St. Petersburg and Art Harvest in Dunedin.

And the festive time of year is simply the icing.

Ballard, one of the art fair organizers, hopes the public will get to experience her beloved community at its best. She has seen deep into the hearts of her neighbors, she said, particularly after she and four of her grandkids almost drowned a year-and-a-half ago in a riptide at Honeymoon Island. A retired schoolteacher died while trying to save her youngest grandson. The whole thing deeply affected Ballard.

"People genuinely care about you here," she recalls. "They were on the phone with me on the way to the hospital. They were there for me after it happened. They still always ask about my grandkids and how they're doing,"

Sure, she shrugs, she and her neighbors have their occasional "fusses and squabbles," but nothing serious. "It's fundamental," she said. "People who buy in here are of the same mold: We love the hometown feel. It's really amazing."

A few years ago, Ballard and her husband, Richard, now 55, moved from the Atlanta suburbs to Pasco County to build Krystal fast-food restaurants in the Tampa Bay area. Longleaf was their first choice of places to live. It had to do with the fact that three people came up to chat with Pat Ballard, a self-described "talker," the moment she stepped out of the car. The Ballards liked Longleaf so much they bought the first house they looked at. It's a 1,960-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath Windjammer model home, designed to appear old-fashioned from the front, but with all the amenities of a modern house inside.

Pat Ballard, a retired executive for a video security company, promptly converted a front bedroom into an office with plenty of built-in organizational shelving "because this is the way I still live," she said. The open kitchen invites conversation and lingering with its scent of brewing coffee and the sound of Christmas carols on the radio.

The house sits snugly across from the community's columned, neoclassical town hall and village green, which is literally so green it looks like a set for a movie. Pat Ballard likes her home's very public location.

"No one's a stranger to me," she said. "I can sit out on my porch and read and talk to people who come by."

She also can take an impromptu walk to look at Christmas decorations, something she likes to do with visitors, pointing out the efforts of all her neighbors who have lovingly decorated their porches.

"People in Longleaf go all out; it looks like a fairyland," raves Rosemary Monte, 55, who adorned her cottage along Town Avenue with a simple door wreath, twines of holly and a decorative sled.

"I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania and I've always decorated for Christmas. Longleaf reminds me of my childhood. And all the white lights look like snow."

While Monte's late husband battled cancer a few years ago, she said, her neighbors were there for her. There are dozens of such tales, she said, of neighbor helping neighbor.

"There are so many amazing stories here," she said. "We're like a big patchwork quilt and each family is a square."

At the Ballards' house, nightfall means white twinkle lights sparkle by the hundred along the porch railing and posts. The glitter on grapevine reindeer and matching potted trees by the front door and on a charming garden trellis topped by a snowman and a sign that declares: "Winter Welcome."

"Longleaf looks like a winter wonderland because of the front porches, the sidewalks and the way the houses are close to the street," Ballard said. "Decorations, well, they can't help but look good here."

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com

Longleaf Fine Arts on the Village Green festival kicks off from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, with a concert by the Allon Sams and Friends Jazz Band. The art fair runs Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring works by 70 juried artists. It also will include ballet and theater performances provided by Renaissance Academy and Dayspring Academy; horse and carriage rides; children's choruses from Chasco, Trinity, Deer Park and Seven Springs elementary schools; a kid's art car; and a parent's art tent. Santa will visit downtown Longleaf on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. The event is free, except for the horse and carriage rides. A $3 parking donation is suggested. Donations also are requested to benefit the Art for Kids program in the Pasco County schools. Longleaf is off State Road 54, 6 miles east of U.S. 19, or 6 miles west of the Suncoast Parkway in southwest Pasco County.

[Last modified December 8, 2005, 00:50:19]