Tampa is home to some very interesting people. There's a great diversity of people, old and young, from all around the country, and all around the world, who have made Tampa their home. Some are working, and some are retired. Many have started second or third careers or contribute their time and money to local museums, charities, and civic organizations. Quite a few people have disposable income. There are many intelligent, talented, and fascinating people who call Tampa their home.
Just as Tampans are interesting and unique, dare I say quirky, Tampa neighborhoods have their own flair and favor, their own unique bent, and their residents are really very proud of and love to show off their neighborhoods. Several neighborhoods have annual home and garden tours during which residents open up their homes so that hundreds of strangers can traipse in and out all day. Neighborhood volunteers, and the owners themselves, are on hand to act as docents and to answer questions as strangers enter their most private spaces. People taking the tour go to the starting point to check in and receive a map, and then they're free to follow the map as they wish, visiting the homes they want to see, walking from stop to stop.
Our first home tour was in Hyde Park Village, starting on Tampa Bay itself and moving a few blocks inland. Bayshore Boulevard is its eastern boundary. The Hyde Park neighborhood was established in the 1880s when railroad financier Henry B. Plant built the first bridge across the Hillsborough River at Lafayette Street (now Kennedy Boulevard). The first house in the neighborhood was built by James Watrous in 1882. It quickly became a prestigious neighborhood, home to both mansions and to "bungalows," smaller homes, but homes that didn't skimp on craftsmanship and luxury. Many of the homes existing in Hyde Park today were built in the 1920s, during Florida's first "Boom" years. The Hyde Park Neighborhood Association created a great video detailing its history. Watch it here https://youtu.be/0M_1i1Kou5M . On this tour, in March, the featured homes ranged from a much younger $4 million mansion directly on the waterfront to 1920s-built bungalows valued, according to Zillow, at about $800,000. Hyde Park continues to be a prestigious and high-priced neighborhood of Tampa today.
A month later, the neighborhood of Seminole Heights hosted its own tour of homes. Seminole Heights was born in 1911. T. Roy Young had 40 acres to develop about three miles north of downtown Tampa. He called it Seminole Heights. Ten years earlier Tampa's population had reached 26,000. A trolley line connected Sulphur Springs to downtown, making travel to the suburbs possible and inviting. The streetcar made it possible to live in one area of town and work in another. The houses built here were mostly bungalow, oriented east-to-west and started at $5,000, a lot of money at the turn of the 20th century. Other developers soon moved in, building cheaper homes, starting at about $1400. Like Hyde Park, the Florida Boom years of the 1920s brought more people to the neighborhood. Today, Seminole Heights is a mix of gentrified and renovated historic homes surrounded by slightly less gentrified homes. One major point of pride amongst Seminole Heights residents is the presence of 15 parks, including a couple along the Hillsborough River. The area is more affordable than some other areas of Tampa Bay, and it's attracting young professionals and their families. The houses on this tour have an average value closer to $400,000.
