White picket fence and all

By JUDY STARK, Times Homes Editor

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 27, 2000

A St. Petersburg couple saw the potential in "the worst house in the neighborhood" and turned it into the home of their dreams.

ST. PETERSBURG -- When Spencer and Dawne Bowen married in July 1992, the bridegroom asked the bride what she wanted in life.

She told him: "A gingerbread house. A white picket fence. And a family."

Now the Bowens have all three, in an almost unbelievable transformation of a neglected, characterless 1950s ranch house in western St. Petersburg ("literally the worst house in the neighborhood," Spencer says).

Hard work and the vision of what it might become have turned it into a charming country cottage, complete with Key West-style metal roof and a gingerbread-trimmed front porch where the Bowens, with son Cole, 4, sit to wave at their neighbors.

Before the makeover the house was a characterless 1950s ranch.

Theirs is a story that might be retold hundreds of times in established neighborhoods, where neglected older homes that at first glance might not merit a second glance are actually a hidden treasure of well-priced, solid housing.

When the couple first looked at the house in 1996, Dawne wasn't enthusiastic about the plain-vanilla asbestos shingles, the brown shutters, the shabby interior, a front deck too small to be useful, two tumbledown storage sheds, and a front yard that was mostly dirt. Still, there was something about the winding front path and the big old oak tree, and they made an offer.

"All along Spencer said, "Don't be put off by what a house looks like outside. You can always change that,' " Dawne recalled. "When we first looked at this house, I thought, "No way!' but then we drove around the alley and saw the big back yard, the nice neighborhood, and the tree in the front, and I said, "I could be interested. We could change it. I think we can do something with it.' You could tell if you did a lot of stuff to it, it could be a cute house inside."

But their offer was rejected, and Dawne says now, "It was meant to be. I was pregnant at the time, and not in any condition to do a lot of work on a house."

A year later, still in the market for a house, Dawne drove by and discovered that the house was for sale again. "We had a contract within three days," she recalled, but not before they had the house inspected so they were certain about the condition of what they were buying.

What they were buying was 1,130 square feet: three bedrooms, two baths (one in an unfinished storage area), a living room, kitchen with built-in dining nook, and family room, plus a big yard. They paid $86,000.

The wooden screen door was custom-made in Maine, using a bunny-shaped cookie cutter Dawne Bowen sent to get just the look she wanted.

The house had lots of classic midcentury charm: built-in bookshelves and storage cabinets around a picture window, cove molding, plaster walls, unusual closets that stand above built-in drawers, a niche in the living room that may once have been a pass-through to the kitchen.

It also had a host of problems. Long used as a rental, the house was badly neglected. Some remodeling projects had stopped abruptly: There were new fixtures in the bathroom, but no one ever installed the toilet-paper holder or the mirror. New tiles had been laid in the family room but were never grouted. Most of the doorknobs were missing. There were new kitchen cabinets, but they had never been trimmed out properly. There were three different ceiling heights in the short hall outside the bedrooms. A closet in one bedroom had been framed in with studs but never completed.

"Some things were halfway done," Dawne said.

"Everything was halfway done," said Spencer, who spent the first month after they bought the house "painting everything."

There were also plenty of what Dawne remembers as "$500 trips to Home Depot" for all the unglamorous necessities: ceiling fans, lightbulbs, electrical switches and plates, towel racks, new locks.

The Bowens are no strangers to home remodeling and repair. Spencer, 48, owns and manages residential income properties. Dawne, 41, a Healthy Start grant coordinator at Bayfront Medical Center, has been "looking at house plans since I was 10 years old" and owned an older home in Crescent Lake before they married. They look at houses for fun.

Sprucing up the inside with fresh paint, paper and accessories in the country-cottage look Dawne favors was a first step. She loves bunny motifs, and there are bunnies everywhere all year, not just in spring. She wanted a wooden screen door with a cut-out bunny pattern, which she finally obtained by sending a cookie cutter in the exact shape she wanted to the Wooden Screen Door Co. in Waldoboro, Maine, where craftsmen created her custom door. (Cost, including shipping: $620.)

The couple had new air-conditioning ductwork installed, replaced the electrical outlets and spent the first six months "fixing up the inside the way we wanted it." Then it was time to turn to the outside.

Even before they bought the house, the Bowens went to a draftsman "to ask whether we could do anything to redo the look of the house." With assurance that what they wanted was possible, they moved ahead, working with Troy Payne Restoration and Interiors Inc. of St. Petersburg.

Dawne's wish list for her gingerbread house included a front porch; gingerbread trim similar to what the couple saw on a visit to Martha's Vineyard; a gable; and a standing-seam metal roof like those they saw in Key West.

The Bowens spent just under $30,000 for the new roof (installed atop the old, which their inspector had cautioned them had only about a year left of useful life); the gable and the new porch; and yellow vinyl siding, installed over half-inch Styrofoam insulation. The porch floor is made from the same recycled plastic lumber used by the City of St. Petersburg for park benches. The Bowens like it because it won't rot, never needs painting and can simply be hosed off.

"Projects like that are fun, when people totally change the style and character of the house," contractor Payne said. "Not to mention, I like that style of house!"

Dawne Bowen was an unusual client in her ability to be specific about exactly what she wanted and what the finished house should look like, Payne said. "Most clients, it's very difficult to pull out what they actually want. For most projects like that I would have an artist do a rendering to assure myself that what the client wants is what I'm fixing to give them. That goes a long way to make sure we're all friends at the end of the job. She was so good about having pictures and showing me, "This is the look I want.' "

Even so, things did not always go smoothly. The major problems were delays while they waited for special-order materials to be delivered, or for subcontractors, and the subsequent stress of living for weeks in a construction site. And sometimes "the workmanship isn't always done the way you want," Payne said. "Whether it's your own employee or a sub, people are people. Some do a good job one day and not another. As the general contractor, all I can do is say that before we leave and ask for your money, it'll be right."

The Bowens' house "will look the same 15 years down the road," Payne predicted. Between the metal roofing, the vinyl siding and the recycled-plastic porch, "it's not going to age. It's going to be beautiful in years. Another project would have shown some age, but every time it rains, that house will look clean again."

Last year's project was landscaping. The couple figure they spent $10,000 on landscaping and sod for the front and back yards and for tree work. They installed a white vinyl picket fence in the front ($1,500) and wood stockade fencing in the back ($1,200), encircling a huge yard with a swing set and playhouse for Cole. Spencer laid the concrete pavers for a patio. The yard is large enough to allow the Bowens to add on to the house, which they say they might someday do to create a master bath. They also have plans for a deck and a pool.

Neighbors wondered if the Bowens were planning to fix up the house and sell it. Their response: Absolutely not. "We love this neighborhood!" they both said.

Now part of the Park Street Neighborhood Association, the area was originally known as Davista, named for its developer, F.A. Davis. Old, shady trees, brick streets, proximity to the Pinellas Trail, two parks and the Boca Ciega Bay waterfront, a quiet street with little traffic, friendly neighbors and a good neighborhood association have sold them on the area, which is not far from Admiral Farragut Academy, St. Petersburg Junior College and Tyrone Boulevard shopping.

The kitchen counter overlooks the family room, where Cole can play or watch TV. Striped wallpaper and fresh curtains give the room a crisp look.

Those are the very features developers are trying to re-create today in neotraditional developments. In this and many other neighborhoods of St. Petersburg and other older cities, the real thing has been here all along.

"You go to places like Celebration, where they're trying to re-create that, and it's right here: affordable, built, ready to go," in the established neighborhoods of older cities, said Bob Jeffrey, manager of urban design and historic preservation for the City of St. Petersburg. He was speaking of the neotraditional town the Walt Disney Co. has created in Osceola County near the Magic Kingdom.

"People tend to be drawn to suburbs because of like income, but they're drawn to older neighborhoods because of like interests. You have a mix of incomes, races, things like that," said Jeffrey, who was formerly on the city's Neighborhood Partnership Team and was a graduate architect with the St. Petersburg firm of Rhode Clemmons Architects, which does a lot of work in historic preservation and adaptive reuse of older buildings. He is also president of the Historic Kenwood Neighborhood Association.

"New developments put in sidewalks and porches, but the porches aren't deep enough to sit on, and the sidewalks don't lead anywhere. So there's no draw to that park or that small neighborhood store," Jeffrey said. "Without that, you don't get the interaction of neighbors. In our traditional neighborhoods, there's a place to go, a destination. People get out at night and walk a couple of blocks to the park and they get to know their neighborhoods and their neighbors."

"We're going to live here for a long time," Dawne said. "We're here to stay."

Dawne’s favorite bunny motifs are everywhere, all year round.

The Bowens also noticed the domino effect of the work on their own home. All around them, up and down the block, once they started putting effort and money into their homes, so did their neighbors: painting here, a new roof there.

"I don't know if we're responsible," Dawne said, but they can see a neighborhood on its way up, and they praised Park Street Neighborhood Association president Christine Stumm for her efforts at neighborhood beautification.

A neighbor across the street shared this story with the Bowens: Someone came to visit and asked, "What ever happened to that awful old house across the street? Did they tear it down and build a new one?"

When the white picket fence was installed last year, Dawne remembered the question her husband asked her when they married: What did she want in life? She recalled her reply: A gingerbread house, a white picket fence, and a family.

Now that the dream is reality, Dawne wrote Spencer a note: "Thank you for making my dream come true."

Remodeling? Consider this

Get ready for sticker shock. "It will cost more money than you think," Dawne Bowen said

Find a good contractor. Payne was recommended by one of the Bowens' babysitters, and the couple visited him in his own home, met his family and his dog, looked at work he had done for others, and checked references before they hired him.

Choose the contractor you can work with. "Don't pick by price. Pick by who your gut tells you you like and can work with," Payne said. "In a normal residential remodel, there is no apples-to-apples. I can read the plans and come up with one number; another contractor can come in with a bid $10,000 higher or lower. Whether it's me or not, pick the contractor you can live with. Then talk to them and get them to come to the budget you have in mind. Make sure you know what you're getting and the contractor knows what he's building and what you expect of him. That should eliminate most of the problems."

Prepare for disruption. "Your regular daily schedule is going to be interrupted for quite some time," Spencer Bowen said. You'll be having morning coffee in your pajamas with the work crews, so be ready for it. Your yard may be used as a staging area for supplies and equipment, and therefore may be off limits to the kids.

Prepare for delays. Materials may not arrive when you want them. Subcontractors may not be available on your schedule. "Everybody is not there the day you want them," Payne said.

Expect the unexpected. Payne said he used to hand clients copies of the video The Money Pit (about hapless suburban homeowners trapped in a nightmare remodeling job) before he started work with the caution, "Something like this could happen on your job."

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