Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Home

A fairy tale made of found items

Your average home in standard suburbia becomes a feast of fancy in this couple's hands.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published August 4, 2006

Adam and Arleen Davidenko know what it means to transform a uniquely Florida home into a work of art, a fairy tale, really.

Visitors tend to gasp in wonder.

"That's the reaction most people have," Arleen explains. "They can't believe it."

Everything in the house was made by hand - specifically by Adam's hands.

Nothing is thrown out, little can't be recycled.

Adam, a career electrician with the eye of Alexander Calder and the inventiveness of Thomas Edison, created an architectural, artistic space in a house that once stood abandoned.

"If Adam throws it away, you know it's really junk," Arleen says, laughing.

Proof is in the shock factor:

He designed a sculptural dining room table from gritty galvanized plumbing fittings and enough individual round stained-glass tabletops for eight diners.

Vibrant, colorful designs in each 2-foot circle of stained glass - suns, flowers, a hot air balloon - are Adam's handiwork as well.

He also fashioned a contemporary china armoire from the industrial racks used in corporate computer rooms; a grandfather clock with a whimsical heart-shaped face from steel conduit and a copper sheet that blew off a roof; and a high-backed modern living room chair shaped from a metal garbage can and cast-off perforated metal.

"I just like to tinker," demurs Adam, who is a gourmet cook and even makes his wife's jewelry.

The couple's 1964 ranch-style home sits tucked deep inside Lake Forest, a quiet, oak-shaded development off Bruce B. Downs Boulevard near Bearss Avenue.

They share the house with two rescue mutts, Hershey and Sugar, and their daughter Nicole Santamaria, 17, a Tampa Prep grad who begins her freshman year at Florida State University this fall.

Each room is unique in its design, from the den paneled in trailer skirting to the bathroom vanity made from clear plastic patio awning and illuminated on the inside for an Art Deco glow.

But when they bought the 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom, 2½-bath structure in December 1998, they couldn't move in at first because of its condition: overgrown and neglected.

"I took a month off from work just to get the kitchen, bathroom and Nicole's room ready," Adam remembers.

Said Arleen: "My mother called and said, 'Are you out of your mind?' "

In fact, the bank didn't want to loan them money until they partially restored the home that hadn't been lived in for 600 days.

Still, Adam felt it was a solid, well-constructed house - concrete block and brick - and knew he could make an artful nest for his family.

The couple had been living in an upscale New Tampa development but wanted more freedom in the design of their home than a deed-restricted community allows.

They fell in love with Lake Forest the moment they drove in because of its abundance of live oaks and attractive 1970s architecture. Because of its location close to I-275 and Bearss Avenue, they are able to get in and out relatively quickly without having to fight traffic.

"Besides getting to live with a creative, wonderful man, I'm so close to downtown," Arleen says. "I just love it here. It's one of the best-kept secrets in Tampa."

Adam was also very much taken with the property that once belonged to the original landowner who sold the lots for the development.

As a result, their lot - six-tenths of an acre with an old farm cottage near the swimming pool - isn't technically part of the development, so they are free to create their own Eden in the 'burbs.

The house is also a love story, a tribute to Adam's passion for Arleen and hers for him.

"Adam is the love of my life," says Arleen, the chief administrative officer for the oldest law firm in Florida: McFarland, Ferguson and McMullen. "He didn't just make the house livable - but he did all this."

Since then, Adam, 42, who is a trained electrician, refurbished the entire house, transforming the master bedroom into a suite, and building a walk-in closet for Arleen and a wet bar for guests.

He used lots of castoffs to create high-style design including a bank of picture windows junked from a high-rise building; his neighbor's old metal door, which now serves as an entrance to the laundry room; and the set of Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired dinette chairs from rigid electrical tubing.

He made the tubular light in the dining room from scraps he found on a job, the artwork on the walls, the unique shelving over the fireplace filled with dozens of zany, miniature cows and turned the once-dysfunctional kitchen into a roomy, good-looking work space.

All out of love for Arleen, whom he says he knew he wanted to marry the moment he looked at her. They met back in the mid 1990s when he was sent to do an electrical job at Arleen's former workplace.

"I knew immediately she was the one," he says, though it was years before they would finally marry because of modern-day Jane Austen-style obligations and entanglements.

(At one point, Adam had a heart with a dagger through it tattooed onto his side, symbolizing the pain he felt without Arleen.)

Arleen, who is warm, business-minded and from Brooklyn, jokes that she is the "accountant" and he is the "creative one," but somehow the relationship flourishes.

It's a house built on love and recycled material.

A bubbling, fog-emitting fountain by the fireplace was made from chunks of raw mined glass.

And a small piece of artwork Adam made for Arleen for Valentine's Day hangs near the front door.

It says: "Crazy in love with you."

Appropriate words for a fairy tale house.

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com.

[Last modified August 2, 2006, 12:36:15]