Skirt! Tampa Bay features TPI

Skirt! Tampa Bay blogger Chris Kuhn is dedicating the month of November to bay area non-profits by highlighting one worthy non-profit each day of the month. Tampa Preservation, Inc. is proud to have been featured on November 1st in the kickoff spotlight. Please check the daily blog to see what other great dedicated organizations make the Tampa Bay area such a great place to live. And please become a member of TPI to stay informed and help support our work preserving the irreplaceable resources that make Tampa such a unique place.

Cody Fowler House

We recently received this information from the Temple Terrace Preservation Society about a historic house that is up for sale with the following disclaimer: "Normally, I don't send out information on Temple Terrace homes for sale but based on what this house means to the history of Temple Terrace and the area (how many houses have their own vintage postcard?), it's the least I can do."

The house for sale is the Cody Fowler House located at 313 Sleepy Hollow Avenue in Temple Terrace. Built in 1922, the house was one of eight original Mediterranean Revival style homes designed for the developers of Temple Terrace by architect M. Leo Elliot. The house was built for Cody Fowler, attorney and former president of the American Bar Association. His mother, Maud Fowler, was one of the founders of Temple Terrace and served as Vice-Mayor. Fowler Avenue, in Tampa, is named for the Fowler family.

For more information on this prominent historic home, contact Realtor Peggy Lawrence at 813-690-8404.

Preservation Roundtable Meeting - November 2009

The Preservation Roundtable will meet on Wednesday, November 4th at 9:00 am at Tampa Union Station. Anyone interested in historic preservation issues in Tampa is welcome to attend. For information, contact Tampa Preservation, Inc. at 813-248-5437.

Why Preservation is Better for the Local Economy

I thought this quote from Donovan Rykema summed up why historic preservation projects benefit local economies more than new construction in a very straightforward manner:

"This greater degree of economic impact is a result of labor intensity. As a rule of thumb, new construction is half materials and half labor. Rehabilitation will be sixty to seventy percent labor with the balance being materials. This labor intensity affects a local economy on two levels. First, we buy an HVAC system from Michigan and lumber from Georgia, but we buy the services of the plumber, the electrician, and the carpenter from across the street. Further, once we install the sink, the sink doesn’t spend any more money. But the plumber gets a hair cut, buys groceries, joins the YMCA – each recirculating that paycheck within the community. That is what makes a sustainable local economy."

To see more reasons preservation makes good economic sense, see the full Rypkema speech at http://blog.prcno.org/2009/10/29/preservation_economics/

Friends of Tampa Union Station

Friends of Tampa Union Station was founded in the Fall of 2008 by a group of citizens eager to preserve Tampa Union Station’s colorful past and to assure its future. The organization was founded in cooperation with the City of Tampa’s Growth Management & Development Services Department, which administers Tampa’s historic preservation program and owns and operates historic Tampa Union Station, along with the Florida Coalition of Rail Passengers.

Friends of Tampa Union Station has been very active since its founding. Late last year, Friends of Tampa Union Station established the Tampa Union Station Preservation Fund at the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay, a permanent endowment for the care, upkeep, and improvement of Tampa Union Station, which was built in 1912. Income from the endowment goes to the City of Tampa to assist with the ongoing restoration of this historic landmark. The fund’s balance stands at over $23,000, with the promise of a $12,500 challenge grant from the Community Foundation when the level of donations reaches $37,500.

On May 9, 2009, the Friends co-hosted National Train Day at Tampa Union Station, an event which brought out over 1,200 people. The Tampa celebration was one of several large events held that day around the country to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the laying in 1869 of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah, which completed America’s first transcontinental railroad.

Visitors to Tampa Union Station were treated to an Amtrak equipment display, exhibits from the Tampa Bay History Center, TBARTA, the City of Tampa’s Office of Historic Preservation and Urban Design, HART, Pinellas County Heritage Village, a Radio Disney remote broadcast, and the Tampa Bay Lightning Girls, among other features. Tampa Poet Laureate James Tokely was also on hand to do a dramatic reading of his poem, “The Epic of Tampa Union Station”.

There are many ways to participate in the ongoing preservation of Tampa Union Station, which is Tampa’s Amtrak station. Friends of Tampa Union Station, on the web at www.tampaunionstation.com, is also now on Facebook and Twitter. Details on how individuals can donate to the Tampa Union Station Preservation Fund at the Community Foundation are detailed on the website.

Upcoming plans are exciting. In the near future, Friends of Tampa Union Station will launch a redesigned website at www.tampaunionstation.com which will include a detailed history of the station, will unveil a new logo, and hopes to start a “buy a brick” engraved donor brick program at the station. Preservationists of all ages are invited to participate!

LOG CABINS IN HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY

Log cabin construction in the United States dates to the middle of the 17th century, when Swedish explorers applied their Scandinavian construction techniques to the Mid-Atlantic. These buildings were constructed as temporary shelters, making use of the readily available lumber in the wilderness. German settlers also brought their own log construction techniques to the United States in the early 18th century, and are credited with popularizing the use of square-hewn log timbers. As immigrants passed through the Mid-Atlantic and spread throughout the country, they took the log cabin style with them.

While not a common architectural style in Florida, historic log construction is usually seen in proximity to the state’s cypress swamps. The cypress harvesting boomed in the first half of the 20th century, largely due to the railroad expansion of that time and the increased ability for logging companies to ship their product. Cypress was a popular construction material due to its imperviousness to moisture and insects. A Cypress Log Cabin was featured at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair as part of the Century of Progress Homes of Tomorrow Exposition.

Alex Shaw, the state dairy inspector for Florida’s west coast, and his wife Beatrice constructed their log cabin in the 1930s on the northwestern bank of Lake Byrd in Lutz. The Shaws built the cabin using local cypress and Hillsborough River limestone rock. The Shaw family moved to Tallahassee in 1947, and Alex Shaw was appointed the director of the dairy division of the Florida Department of Agriculture. The Shaw family maintained the cabin as a summer destination until 1971, when they sold it to Russell Crumpton, a neighbor, who deeded it to his son and daughter-in-law, Danny and Joni Crumpton. The log cabin was deeded to a trust in 1987, and it was sold in 2004 to Bella Vita Development.

In 2003, Bella Vita rezoned the property to a Planned Development District for a subdivision of 13 single-family homes. The conditions of the rezoning required the Shaw’s log cabin to be relocated for preservation. The cabin was disassembled, log by log, in 2004. Each log was measured and tagged prior to disassembly. After an extensive search for a new location in a historically appropriate context, the log cabin was rebuilt at the site of the Learning Gate Community School in 2005. Some of the original materials, including the chinking, roofing and flooring materials, and some of the cypress logs and limestone rocks, were replaced with in-kind materials during the log cabin’s reconstruction at its new location.

The cross-shaped log cabin sits on a pier foundation of concrete blocks covered with limestone rock. This building is constructed from horizontally-laid saddle-notched cypress logs and is topped by an intersecting gable roof. The original tin roof is no longer intact, and the roof is currently covered with composition roll roofing. Fenestration consists of original eight-over-eight double-hung wood-sash and four-light paired wood casement windows set in wood surrounds. An exterior chimney, constructed from concrete block and clad in limestone rock, is located on the north side of the building.

The Shaw Family/Learning Gate Community School Log Cabin is one of the earliest surviving log cabins in the area to exhibit few non-historic exterior alterations, and the building retains its historic physical integrity. Through the use of local cypress and limestone, the log cabin exhibits construction materials and design adaptive to the Florida environment. The log cabin has an historic association with the area’s early settlement and social history, and it is one of the few remaining buildings associated with the Shaw family. As such, it is a good representation of Hillsborough County’s settlement heritage in a rural setting and may be considered eligible for local Landmark designation.

Article provided by Elaine Lund

HISTORIC HYDE PARK VIDEO AND EXHIBIT PLANNED

Hyde Park has one of the largest and most cohesive collections of early 20th century residential architecture in the United States. In order to publicize this national treasure regionally and nationally, the Historic Hyde Park Neighborhood Association (HHPNA) intends to create a video to be introduced in conjunction with its annual Home Tour, as well as hold a related exhibit at the Tampa Bay History Center. Both will be entitled “Celebrate the Bungalow in Historic Hyde Park.” Of particular interest is Bungalow Terrace, a unique pedestrian street of bungalows that will be highlighted. While the overall focus of the 30 minute video will be on neighborhood architecture, the video will pay special homage to the bungalow. The video will use examples from homes in the neighborhood to illustrate the characteristics typical in a bungalow.

Once completed, the video will be available in CD format to area residents, regional preservation groups and media. The video would also be shown at the History Center during the period of the Exhibit. With the focus on the bungalow, the video would be a educational tool that would be of value to any community or anyone interested in this architectural style -- anywhere in the US.
To further expand awareness of the unique characteristics of the neighborhood, Historic Hyde Park will prepare an exhibit in the Community Case at the Tampa Bay History Center scheduled for March 2010. The focus of the exhibit will also be on the history of the neighborhood and the characteristics of the bungalow.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Historic Hyde Park will create a teacher’s guide in order to involve children in the exhibition and teach them about architecture and history. The guide will be distributed to schools and parents.

Help Needed
To create the video and exhibit, Historic Hyde Park needs help with research and materials. Any photos or other artifacts of the Historic Hyde Park neighborhood from before 1935, particularly of bungalows or bungalow related, would be much appreciated. This would include Historic Hyde Park post cards, interior images (i.e. family photos, including weddings, etc.) or garden views of bungalows before 1935.

Please contact Del Acosta if you have materials or can otherwise help -- del.acosta@verizon.net or (813) 817-6254.