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Letter to the editor

A lesson in seeing how other half lives

By Marlene Sokol, Editor
Published February 29, 2008

I'm not saying they drink a lot in Grand Hampton. But the model house I looked at had a place downstairs for your wine bottles, a wet bar upstairs with the full-size pool table, and a community swimming pool that just screamed, "paper umbrellas in the drinks."

It's not all debauchery, mind you. The tour guide at a recent sales blitz led customers through a fully functioning fitness center where a lifestyles director will hook you up with personal training, Pilates, the works. Out by the pool, there's lighted basketball and tennis.

"What we're selling is a lifestyle," said Channa Calzone. It was a balmy 80-plus degrees, with dozens of happy swimmers perched along the lushly landscaped pool deck. "When it's busy like this, that's how we like it."

Welcome to New Tampa, which builds and builds despite all the hand-wringing about the economy in general and real estate in particular.

Even outside the gates of Grand Hampton, there are "Models Open" and "Townhomes Available" signs everywhere on a Sunday morning. Leave church, tour a model.

Grand Hampton, which is slightly more than half built-out, eventually will have 1,100 homes, feeding Bruce B. Downs traffic and Turner Elementary, Bartels Middle and Wharton High schools.

In an economy long dependent on home building, we should perhaps tip our hats to LandMar, the Jacksonville developer that is moving ahead so confidently.

To quote my colleague James Thorner, who blogs about the housing market in "(Un)real Estate," area home sales were 24 percent slower this January than last, and statewide the drop was closer to 30 percent.

The median sales price locally fell from $220,100 to $187,100 the past year, a decline of 15 percent. I know someone who just bought a very nice 3/2 in Northdale for well under $200,000.

At these prices, why not buy two?

I fell in love with San Jacinto, the two-story Grand Hampton model referenced above. From the street, it looks beautifully Spanish, with a striking balcony that has columns, a discreet rail and outdoor drapery. From the inside, you get a rear view of the woods through a lanai with a pool and Jacuzzi in an earthy stone finish.

But then there was the matter of the $440,000 price tag, which for me amounts to Jed Clampett striking oil while a-shootin' at some food. A townhome is more feasible for the $250,000 crowd.

On the drive back to Carrollwood, I passed at least a half-dozen gold median signs with bold black lettering, lined up Burma Shave-style.

They read: "Bank Foreclosure Open House."

* * *

We got a lot of push-back for our story about Clayburn Reed's Tampa Palms birthday party, most of it on the Web, from people who wondered 1) why it was a story and 2) what kind of parents blow through $3,000 for a party the child absolutely will not remember. The comments were among the meanest I've seen on a story from my office, but in this age of interactive Web journalism, that's what you get. We're after a free exchange of ideas and, if you read past the meanness, there were a few valid points made.

The family invited us to cover the event, so I do not feel we invaded their privacy. Let's all put the matter in some perspective, too. Show me parents who do not indulge, or overindulge, their children and I'll show youLittle House on the Prairie.

[Last modified February 29, 2008, 02:05:01]