Look inside: Temple Terrace home built in 1926 for sale
TEMPLE TERRACE, Fla. - One of the first homes ever built in Temple Terrace is back on the market, with historians hopeful the next owners maintain the history ingrained in the house.
The home at 215 Willowick Avenue, currently listed for $870,000, was built in 1926 and still has many of the original amenities that it had nearly a century ago.
"When I walked into this house, I fell in love," said realtor Sarah DiMonaco, with Remarkable Real Estate and Rentals. "This house is a unicorn. It is a perfect blend of beautifully preserved past and modern conveniences that we need today."
DiMonaco said the current owners have lived in the home for 25 years and have meticulously refurbished parts of it, including some of the original wood doors, windows, hardware and marble around the fireplace. They've also added to or updated other parts of the home, including the kitchen, bedrooms and pool.
"They put love into this home. And they're really hoping to turn this home over to somebody that's going to love it into the next 100 years," DiMonaco said.
The home was built at the height of the Florida land boom of the 1920s and developers in Temple Terrace wanted to make a splash.
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"The folks who did Temple Terrace hired Dwight James Baum, who was a very famous notable architect from New York," said Rodney Kite-Powell, a historian with the Tampa Bay History Center.
By then, Baum was already famous in Florida, having designed John Ringling's Ca' d'Zan, the circus performer's famous palace in Sarasota.
Kite-Powell said Baum was hired to build 120 Spanish Mediterranean-style homes in Temple Terrace, but the development didn't go as planned.
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"In Florida, with every boom that we've had, we've had a bust. And the 1920s land boom was followed by a really, really major and disastrous bust," Kite-Powell explained.
Baum only finished 30 houses, which were among the community's first homes. The one on Willowick is one of only 19 still standing.
Historians said they're important pieces of history.
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"Looking back a hundred years later, we have some of the architecture that really represents that era and really helps tell the story of the extravagance that was the 1920s land boom," said Kite-Powell.
According to DiMonaco, the owners have been told their house may qualify to be placed on the National Registry of Historic Places. However, they said they're going to leave that decision up to the new owners.
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