2. Thanks Dad

I must mention that this house is in part a posthumous homage to my wonderful father Tom, who died in 2008.  T.O.M. as he called himself - "The Old Man".  He loved the ocean and spent his 83 years as close to the beach as he could get.  I can still see his feet in the sand, with that faded old blue tattoo on his foot which I think was a number from his military service.  During my childhood, he looked a little like Gene Hackman, then came the Sean Connery years, and appropriately he ended up looking a little like Hemingway.  This photo shows my Dad and his father at the beach in Queens in the late 1920's.

After he died a portrait that I had done for him on his 70th birthday was returned to me, and I had no idea what to do with it.  That painting will have a place of honor at Grandview.
    
The house is in an area less than a square mile, that is a designated historic district.  It's full of cute homes, though most seem to be from the 1950's and forward.  I'd say about a third have been fixed up, and only a few are really in bad shape.  I think I've got the oldest one on the block.  There is a grant available from the city for redevelopment and I called today to set up a meeting next Tuesday to talk about what I want to do to the place.  In order to qualify, there cannot have been a previous grant on the same property, and the house has to be used as single-family residential.  Some of the homes have been split up into multi-family or tenement style buildings.  The city is trying to return the neighborhood to some of  it's former glory.

The bubble burst in 2005 or 2006 - and for the last several years the Real Estate market has been severely depressed, only just now beginning to turn around.   The lady that lives in a small house behind mine (Henrietta I think or Annette?) told me that she was here when the old man that lived in the house fell and broke his hip.  I heard some of his story - I guess he had lived there for a long time after his wife died.  I'm sorry to say that his estate sold it in 2001 along with some other parcels and got hardly anything for it.  Then it was sold in July of 2005 for $148K and flipped in September for a whopping $250,000!!  The roof was replaced, and new plumbing, electrical and HVAC was added to the house.  Unfortunately this guy wasn't buying it for his own use, and thought he was going to resell and make a fortune I'm sure.

Although it is nice that I got into this house right before what I believe will be an upswing in the market, I don't ever plan to sell it.  I have always enjoyed the beach - except for the sticky, sunburned, sand-in-your-bathing suit ride home.  The most vivid memories of our frequent trips to Jones Beach as a child was the back seat of the car sticking to my sunburned legs and the smell of the Ban de Soleil my mother would smear all over herself (for that San Tropez melanoma).  So for the thirty years I have lived in Florida I have rarely made more than one trip to the beach per year, and some of those didn't even warrant a bathing suit.  The idea of having a close, comfortable place to resort to when the sun got to hot, or someone got a jellyfish sting, or the food got full of sand... that really appeals to me.  And I'm sure my Dad would approve.