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Amid oaks, elms, he's home

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published January 15, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - Rick Feagley found his bliss, and a little piece of the Florida Everglades, in his own back yard.

A little more than a decade ago, Feagley paid $42,000 for a small concrete-block house in the Spring Lake Estates subdivision off Trouble Creek Road.

The house and terraced gardens overlook what he estimates to be a 1,000-year-old sinkhole - essentially, a primordial body of water that's about 1 1/2 acres wide and ringed by moss-draped oaks, cypress, palms, hickory and Chinese elms.

Late on a winter afternoon, it's a backyard hideaway so beautiful that it feels like a time warp - a place that outlived the subdivisions, strip malls and traffic gridlock that have come to define 21st century Florida.

"It's really, really peaceful here - another world," said Feagley, 53, who works in mosquito control for Pasco County. "At night, there are so many frogs and crickets that you can't hear U.S. 19. It's totally quiet, like you're miles out in the country."

Tall and lanky, with the easy disposition of someone who spends his life outdoors, Feagley roams his property with a pet squirrel, Rascal, on his shoulder, and a rescued raccoon, Rocky, trailing at his heels. Over the years, he has transformed his back yard into a room with a view: a handmade cedar deck ringed with burly, hand-carved rails overlooks the dramatic sinkhole. Paths fashioned from antique brick he has collected wind down to the water, edged by railings built from old terra-cotta sewer pipes. He made a hot tub from a stainless steel cow-milking bin (years ago, he milked cows at a local dairy) and built a finch aviary from smoked-glass storefront windows he salvaged from the old Zayre store. Staghorn ferns and other Florida-friendly plants he collected and replanted over the years grow in lush abundance. Small seating areas offer visitors alcoves to relax and enjoy the view during the day; and cold evenings are warmed by a cozy, natural fire pit built into the side of the small cliff.

Along one path, Feagley tucked one of his hand-hewn wooden sculptures, an eagle with elegant, elongated wings that look like they are buoyed by wind.

In his spare time, when he's not playing basketball or fishing, he carves exquisitely complex cedar sculpture. Though he has no artistic training, his work is sophisticated and impressive. An outstretched, abstract ballerina with elongated limbs arches her back as if she's about to do a flip, long hair trailing behind her. A powerful tarpon, taller than a man, is carved with intricately detailed scales. A panther sports the well-formed hands of a human. A jumping dolphin - made of driftwood from Anclote Key - doubles as a sofa side table.

"I love to carve, but it's hard to find the time to do it," Feagley said, "especially when I don't have space in my garage."

His Aegean-blue, concrete-block house has shells lining the front windows and the address numbers painted on a life preserver. At 1,200 square feet, it's just big enough for Feagley, his girlfriend and her teenage daughter.

The house, with two bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths, was built about 36 years ago in this small subdivision near U.S. 19.

Back when he was house hunting, he drove through the neighborhood a couple of times, not sure if it was for him.

"I didn't have a lot of money to spend," he recalled. "My sister found the house and loved the back yard. She called me up and said, 'You like living on the water, don't you?' "

An understatement, to say the least, he said with a smile.

A true environmentalist, Feagley cares deeply about the health of the sinkhole and its relationship to the aquifer, the underground river that is Florida's principal source of drinking water. He worries about the direct drainage from the streets into the ancient hole, a consequence of its incorrect classification as a retention pond decades ago.

Feagley wants to see that changed.

Over the years, he has hauled truckloads of waste and litter from the sinkhole.

When it rains, he said, oils, toxins, bottles, trash and chemicals flow from the streets into the hole, darkening the water with pollution and so drastically altering the water level that it kills good plants such as duckweed.

He has a solution, if anyone wants to listen: Reroute the runoff to a real drainage ditch behind a nearby school.

He keeps what look like long butterfly nets propped against a tree by the shoreline for daily litter removal. He can fish out what's visible on the surface, but worries about what he can't see. By his measurements with a rope and concrete block, he estimates the depth at 35 feet or more.

"There's another 15 feet or so of dead grass and muck," he said. "It's so polluted, you can't get down where the springs are."

For now, he keeps on cleaning.

"I just love nature and knew when I saw this place what it could be - like the Everglades."

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

[Last modified January 15, 2007, 07:24:28]