A Green Christmas
SEMINOLE HEIGHTS - Walk, ride a bicycle or hop aboard an electric cart. Go green for the Southeast Seminole Heights Holiday Home and Garden Tour. The neighborhood is celebrating the season with an eco-friendly theme. The first 100 arrivals can pick up a shopper-friendly, recyclable green bag courtesy of Publix loaded with goodies such as water-saving shower heads and nozzles, tablets to check for toilet leaks and brochures with environmental tips. “To me, that’s the most exciting part,” said tour organizer Stan Lasater. Tasty morsels from some of the neighborhood’s eateries, including Bungalow Bistro and Ella’s, will be on sale along the way for a dollar or two. The tour, which took a holiday break last year, is back for its fourth year. There will be eight homes decked out in garlands, baubles and greenery, and the tour’s starting point — Seminole Heights Baptist Church — also will welcome visitors. Among the homes featured is a 1928 bungalow spruced up with garlands and a winter village scene on the mantel. “Just holiday decorations all over,” said Kristy Dell. She and husband Brian moved to Southeast Seminole Heights from an apartment in New Tampa more than three years ago. She is band and orchestra director at Wilson Middle School; he is band and orchestra director at Gaither High School. “We like older homes,” said Kristy Dell. “It was in relatively good shape when we bought it.” “We could live in it and do the work,” said her husband. With help from Kristy’s father, Gerald Leduc, they have done major overhauls of the kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen was gutted and redesigned with white bead board and painted in a soft “brick” color. Built-in cabinets and new countertops were added. Leduc turned an open nook into a breakfast spot with a table and built-in benches covered in red and white plaid. Outside, Leduc designed a garage to match the 1920s Craftsman bungalow style of the home. “We try to keep everything relative to the time period,” Kristy Dell said. The annual tours bring in the crowds, attracting between 700 and 1,000 visitors. The route is a loop of about three miles. Near the halfway mark between McBerry and 12th streets, the Business Guild of Seminole Heights will have a business expo to meet and greet tour visitors. A drawing also is planned. Electric carts from Green-Go’s Tampa Inc. will ferry people along the route. Donated bicycles will be available for people who like pedal power. They can be “rented” by leaving a driver’s license with volunteers at the church. One home on the tour is a modular home assembled on-site about three years ago. It’s in bungalow style and “really cute,” Lasater said. “If you’re driving down the street you’d never know it was a modular.”
IF YOU GO WHAT: Seminole Heights Holiday Home and Garden Tour
WHEN: 1 to 5:30 p.m. Dec. 7
WHERE: Tickets can be purchased the day of at Seminole Heights Baptist Church, 801 E. Hillsborough Ave.
COST: $10
FOR INFORMATION: www.myspace.com/ holidayhometour
Although the weather was nice, the home owners were interesting and the houses attractive: Five out of nine of the houses on the tour were for sale. I’m used to realtors having open houses in homes that are not part of the tour itself, but this was insane.
Next year, perhaps the realtor in question should pay the SESH association rather than charge the visitors for looking at their housing stock.
Were the homes less ugly as they were for sale? Were you pressured into buying? Did the for sale sign detract from the beauty of the home?
The answer to all is NO! Give it a rest you ungrateful Biatch! I am so sick and tired of people always finding the negative in every fricking thing. This neighborhood is so anti-neighborhood you can’t please anyone. Next time, you get off your lazy ass and try planning one of these events. Bottom line is our economy is in the toilet and these people are working their asses off to raise money for their association. All-in-all it was a tremendous event. What home tour do you know of that offers personal rides in their cars. We even got picked up in a new range rover. We would be walking down the street and were picked up by the drivers. We were handed cell numbers that we could call for rides. My grandma, who grew up here, was shocked by the excellent hospitality.
Maybe before you open your fat mouth, you may want to sit back and realize the volunteer hours that go into putting on such an event!!!!!!!!!!!
Guess you didn’t find your post to be ugly or negative either. Maybe you should just sit back and give it a rest Biatch!
Your blog is so different from us, very nice.