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Homes

Charm galore, and not in Hyde Park

A 1920s cottage in Temple Terrace is as warm and comforting as the owner's stew and country corn bread.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published December 16, 2005

TEMPLE TERRACE - Peggy Lawrence knows how to take an old house and warm it up.

The proof is in the finished product: Her 1920s Mediterranean Revival cottage beckons visitors to sit a spell and enjoy her Southern cooking, so good that friends have urged her to open a restaurant.

Woven rugs, heaps of baskets, funky chandeliers and original artwork lend the house a soothing, down-home feel. Friends who love her cooking have urged her to share her decorating skills, something she did Sunday afternoon on the Temple Terrace Tour of Homes.

The tour, sponsored by the Temple Terrace Preservation Society, offered a holiday peek into seven historic Mediterranean-style homes as well as Temple Terrace Community Church. The church, formerly a 1920s real estate office, sits beneath a dome thought to depict half of a temple orange, once grown widely in the area.

Many of the featured houses, culled from about 65 original neighborhood Mediterranean Revival homes still standing, were developed by a New York firm that built luxury apartment buildings in Manhattan. For people like Lawrence, owning and preserving such a home remains a labor of love, a constant dedication that often means putting up with occasional ceiling leaks and a too-small kitchen.

"A lot of people want to preserve these old houses, but they don't necessarily want to live in them," said Lani Czyzewski, a longtime preservation society member and antique dealer who has lived in Temple Terrace since the 1970s. Czyzewski explained that the tour offered people a chance to get inside some of the most interesting Mediterranean Revival homes in Tampa. And, she adds, these historic homes aren't in the usual old South Tampa neighborhoods.

"Temple Terrace has wonderful canopied streets and a different feeling from South Tampa," Czyzewski said. "It has to do with the land that surrounds the houses and the fact that the houses aren't on top of each other."

Originally a planned golf course community for wealthy, retired Northerners, the neighborhood has lots of Mediterranean architecture, lush oak trees and a public golf course designed by Tom Benedelow, who designed the famous Medinah Golf Course in Illinois as well as the Palma Ceia golf course in South Tampa.

Architect Dwight James Baum, who designed many of the early homes in Temple Terrace, also designed the Sarasota mansion Ca d'Zan for John and Mable Ringling.

"When I first saw the outside of this house, I thought it was so quaint I had to have it," said Lawrence, who bought the cottage, now pale yellow accented with deep-pink bougainvillea, 71/2 years ago. Lawrence and her husband, Paul, paid $135,000 for the two-story 1,650-square-foot home that still looks very much as it might have when the owner of a large orange grove and nearby packing house built it.

"I wanted to keep it as near as it might have been in 1925," Lawrence said. "I've gotten calls from salespeople wanting to replace the old windows and I say, "You don't understand. I love the old windows."'

The Lawrences also chose to retain the original bathroom fixtures and tile, wood floors, clay roof tiles, cabinets, shelves, doors and door hardware, including the oak and wrought iron front door. The fireplace still has its original Moorish tile, terra-cotta peacock tile monogram and the logo of Bing and Bing Construction in New York, which built much of Temple Terrace in the 1920s.

Over the years, the couple added a rear porch that opens to the former maids' room, now a cozy office. The outdoor living space overlooks a landscaped garden lush with rangy macho ferns.

Inside, the house is filled with art and paintings by Peggy Lawrence's sister and nephews. Family heirlooms abound, including a primitive dining table from the 1800s where Lawrence serves casual meals on colorful Fiesta Ware.

"I'm from the South, from Knoxville, Tenn., and I have lots of my family's things," she said. "It's what I prefer. I hardly even buy anything new, except for couches. Upstairs, in the master bedroom, she displays vintage quilts in an open cupboard near a large sleigh bed.

Lawrence, a real estate agent who works in Temple Terrace, cooks in a kitchen that's original to the house. Instead of trying to make it look bigger, she warmed the walls in a deep shade of terra-cotta paint.

The kitchen, built modestly for early Florida residents who ate at the nearby country club (now Florida College), is smaller than most walk-in closets in fancier houses.

But it suits her just fine.

On a chilly December afternoon, Lawrence stirred a pot of homemade beef stew and popped her Tennessee skillet corn bread in the oven. A lamp glowed on the wooden counter top and candles burned, illuminating the small, cozy rooms of her charming house.

"My kitchen has the original porcelain sink and a butler's pantry I don't even want to show you, but it works for me."

As proof, her corn bread came out of the oven tender and moist with a hint of crackle.

The secret?

Not the kitchen.

"It's an old family recipe," she said with a smile. "And Tennessee corn flour."

[Last modified December 15, 2005, 10:05:12]