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Front Porch: Menorahs, art bring distinction

As impressive as this home's menorah collection is, the paintings and sculptures are even more amazing.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published December 30, 2005

As menorah collections go, Laurin and Ron Jacobson's is an offering of beauty: an assortment of styles and specimens made by an international cache of artists who work in a variety of unexpected media, including glass, ceramic, gold and rubber.

As art collections go, the Jacobsons' collection of 20th century paintings and sculpture is even more amazing.

An invitation to their South Tampa home on a brisk, moonlit evening in December to talk about menorahs almost instantly turns to art.

In the courtyard stands a wispy, coil of horse by Montana equine sculptor Deborah Butterfield. On the walls of the living room are paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, Marc Chagall, Larry Rivers, Robert Indiana, Claus Oldenburg, to name a few.

Sit down on a piece of furniture - arranged by a top associate of designer Ralph Lauren - and most likely it is a Barcelona or Charles Eames-designed chair. Ask about the glass cocktail table on industrial-style wheels, and you'll learn it was designed by architect Philippe Starke. Switch on the sensual, paper-sculpture lamp, and it becomes clear it's the work of Japanese abstract expressionist Isamu Noguchi.

Laurin, blond, warm, effusive and kind, greets her visitor in a hand-dyed Mexican dress and flip-flops. She has a voice trained for opera and a well-tuned ear for Bach.

Her welcoming, feel-at-home manner is most likely a product of her Midwestern roots. Raised in the "only Jewish family" in Peru, Ind., where her father owned a scrap-metal business, she has traveled the world and lived everywhere from Mexico to Israel to New York City. Fluent in Hebrew, she's a well-known vocalist who sings in choral groups around the area.

"Inside, I'm simple," she says matter of factly. "I always remember my roots."

The couple's home in Parkland Estates, designed in the 1960s by a Greek-born Tampa architect, stands as a monument to contemporary design.

"It's not grandiose," says Laurin, who teaches at Hillel School of Tampa, where her menorah collection is on display. "We haven't done a lot to it over the years - haven't needed to - and we don't have spa bathrooms."

Indeed, they don't.

If you enjoy the safe, traditional look of builder-designed model homes, then this house isn't for you. If you love outstanding modern architecture, the Jacobsons' home is as timeless as a well-cut Chanel suit.

A house filled with soul, it features a courtyard lush with bamboo and tropical foliage, a black marcasite pool and separate guest quarters. The guest wing is really a teen bedroom suite and an art studio for Ron, a South African-born emergency room physician and serious modern artist, whose work is displayed in public and private art collections around Tampa.

He's also known for his wild and often colorful pop art boxes that can be used as coffee tables. His large sculptures of New York City street scenes, including crosswalks and subway entrances, grace his home in the most unexpected places, even the dining room.

The couple are also famous for the large Hanukkah party they throw every year, an event for a posse of friends, kids and neighbors, including the pastor of nearby Bayshore Baptist Church.

"I ask everyone to bring a menorah, then we arrange them beautifully right here," she says, pointing to a modern kitchen island where, on this particular night, she brews fragrant mugs of tropical green tea.

The house, she says, is comfortable, family-friendly (the 10-foot-deep pool invites diving off a trellis roof) and ideal for entertaining, something the Jacobsons love to do.

"The courtyard with the bamboo and the view of the moon and church steeple is so beautiful at night, you can't help but want to be out here," she says.

"If you love art, you will love this house."

[Last modified December 29, 2005, 08:40:09]