Border reveals community tensions

On different sides of a great wall (of privacy) are a colossal mansion, fears about property values and a tug-of-war over trees.

[Times photo: Mike Pease] Terry Zacker's 50-year-old house is at the end of Wooten Road and behind the guest house of a 24,000-square-foot French chateau.

By BILL COATS

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 2, 2001

LUTZ -- Looming over a 10-foot masonry wall on the edge of the Avila subdivision is a French chateau, one of the biggest houses in Tampa Bay.

Nestled just outside the wall are older, smaller houses along Wooten Road. The chateau dwarfs the Wooten Road houses so much that it may diminish their value.

Now comes another change.

A block northeast, a row of trees just outside Avila has been branded for two months with orange X's. Until last week, all faced imminent doom. Word spread along Wooten -- erroneously -- that a new Avila resident went after the trees to allow more sunshine on a backyard swimming pool.

The county spared the trees, but it hardly cured the cultural divide symbolized by Avila's privacy wall.

On the Wooten side is a neighborhood that has been naturally secluded for a generation on a forested road that dead-ends at Lake Colebrook. On the Avila side are mansions built in the past two years. The vacant lots on the Avila side were valued higher than the homes on the Wooten side.

The tree controversy started on the Wooten side.

Don Newberger, executive director of the Avila Property Owners Association, said a woman on Wooten Road called Avila in January to warn that a leaning tree might threaten the wall. Avila concluded the tree was on a Hillsborough County right of way, and other trees there looked dead. An Avila employee relayed the concern to the county, Newberger said.

"The chapter closed for us," he said. "We did our good deed."

A county inspector promptly marked 26 trees for destruction. The big orange X's brought out the tree lovers, including Dan Harnly, 66, a semiretired architect who lives on Wooten.

"I only ask that the people that do it do it with some sensitivity and not come in here and rape, pillage and plunder everything," he said.

A county tree expert, John Schrecengost, examined the 26 marked trees and recommended that all but six be cut down. Many are black cherry trees, Schrecengost said. While they superficially resemble oaks, black cherries suffer more problems such as root rot. They die younger.

Andy Morris, a roadway maintenance manager, came to Wooten last week to propose a final plan. Morris walked from tree to tree with Harnly and five neighbors. He proposed to cut down dead trees, cut away dead parts of sick trees, and remove any tree or limb that seemed to lean hazardously over the Avila wall.

Nine trees are to be completely removed.

"I think it's fair," neighbor Don Bucklew told Morris.

"I'll roll over and play dead," Harnly said.

Behemoth behind them

Playing dead, apparently, is all Harnly and his neighbors can do about the 24,000-square-foot French chateau behind them.

"When we saw the stakes and the string out there, we didn't think it was the foundation," said Terry Zacker, whose 50-year-old house at the end of Wooten is behind the chateau's guest home. "We thought it was just the site.

"When it was poured, it looked like an airport runway over there. It just didn't look like a foundation for a home. It was too huge."

Around then, home builder Joe O'Connell, who was building the chateau for himself and his wife, was being forced to change his plans.

The front of the O'Connell property was pinched from two sides by ponds. It also had clusters of oaks the couple wanted to save. So they had designed the house to sit as close to the rear property line as possible.

The county setback is 25 feet, which is where the O'Connells placed their house. But the rule has a footnote: When the height of a house exceeds 30 feet, the setback increases 2 feet for every 1-foot increase in height. Before their plans were approved, the O'Connells were forced to shorten their house to 47 feet at the roof peak.

"My first floor was 16 feet high; now it's 15 feet," said Liz O'Connell. "I think the second floor is 15 feet also, but I'm not sure."

When the Times asked about the setback rule, a pair of county officials reinspected the house.

"He's pushing the envelope, there's no doubt about that," said Gary Pailthorp, the county's construction services manager. "But he's on the legal side of pushing the envelope."

Not everyone's party

Terry Zacker soured as the O'Connells built the second largest house in Hillsborough County.

"Now, for 180 degrees on the compass, we can't get any wind," he said.

He began talking to a real estate agent.

Then, on Feb. 10, the O'Connells had 600 party guests, and two bands, at an annual fundraising ball for the American Heart Association. In previous years, it was held in hotel ballrooms.

Zacker had to turn up his television. "Not that it was bad music, but it was quite loud," he said.

Vince Arcuri, the real estate agent, was pessimistic. "I just feel like the guy really got shafted by Avila big time," he said.

If he markets Zacker's house, Arcuri said, "I'm going to subtract 20 grand from the price because of the house being behind him there."

Liz O'Connell said she would consider buying Zacker's house, but only if she could buy Harnly's too. Harnly's would provide a rear lawn with two dozen majestic trees. Zacker's would extend the lawn to the shore of Lake Colebrook.

But Harnly, after 35 years there, intends to stay, even if he has to look at a house instead of the western sky.

"The other aspect is, whoever lives across the wall has to look at me," he said. "They may not like what they see."

- Bill Coats can be reached at (813) 226-3469 or coats@sptimes.com.

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