If you saw this neighborhood, you might fall in love. So, better not: To buy there, it’s not what you love, but who you know.
By Anne Jungen
If the walls of the stucco house on Driftwood Road could talk, they would tell a story of four generations of Linebergers.
Ian Lineberger is 50 now. He and his wife, Kelli, sleep in his parents’ old bedroom, just down the hall from the room he shared with his brother as a child. Kye Lineberger, 8, now plays with his toys in the room where his father and uncle grew up. Kasey Lineberger, 6, dresses her dolls in the room Ian’s older sister once occupied.
“I hope this house stays in the family forever,” Ian Lineberger says.
For more than a half-century, it has.
Lineberger and his children are the third and fourth generations to live in the spacious two-story on Driftwood Road Southeast, just across the street from Bayou Bay. They are part of a long-standing tradition in Driftwood, a 49-home community tucked into Pinellas Village, where homes pass from generation to generation, friend to friend.
Iron letters spelling DRIFTWOOD form an arch over the entrance to the community. Inside, oak trees tower over the homes — many built in the late 1930s — and form canopies above the streets. Lush vegetation graces the yards and spills onto the narrow winding roads. Neighbors greet each other by name.
Families who own homes inside this enclave treasure that continuity. But those who want to share in that treasure can find themselves locked out.
“For Sale” signs and vacant lots are nonexistent. As many as five homes are now owned by a third or fourth generation of the same family; sometimes family members branch out and buy neighboring homes. When a house does come on the market, the news is spread through friendly word-of-mouth, making it almost impossible for an outsider to penetrate without connections.
Hopeful buyers have been known to make outrageous bids for the chance to live here; offers of $1 million or more for homes valued at less than half that are not unheard of. The most recent county tax appraisal put the average value of a Driftwood home at $357,000, according to the Pinellas County Property Appraisers office; market value is estimated to be about $423,000.
But residents regard their homes as priceless.
“There’s very little turnover,” Lineberger says.
Driftwood, bounded by 24th Avenue Southeast and Driftwood Road South between Florida Avenue South and Beach Drive Southeast, is home to poets, musicians, artists, lawyers and doctors. Over the years, it has come to include at least one African-American couple, an interracial pair, and gays and lesbians. Some neighbors speak in English, French and German accents.
Lineberger is president of Jet Fuel, a St. Petersburg fueling company. His home hasn’t been on the real estate market in more than 50 years. He says his parents bought the 1937 frame-and-stucco home in 1950 for $10,000. They sold it to his grandmother in 1964. Then he bought it from her in 1987 for $70,000.
The house was appraised at $253,200 in January 2004, according to Pinellas County property records.
But those figures are meaningless to Lineberger, and have nothing to do with the true worth of his home.
“I love this home even more now that I’m an adult,” Lineberger says.
And he hopes either Kye or Kasey will want to keep it, and someday chose to raise his grandchildren there.
“You couldn’t duplicate this kind of neighborhood anywhere,” he says. “It’s not just unique, it’s valuable.”
Neighbors remain close and become friends. They celebrate the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve together, pop in for barbecues and potluck dinners. And some residents have known each other their entire lives.
Ian Lineberger grew up down the street from Dan Schuh, whose family moved into the neighborhood in 1948. In 1974, Schuh bought his own two-story, 5,000-square-foot beachfront home for $70,000 — just four houses away from his parents’ place.
“I haven’t found anywhere else in the world I’d rather be,” says Schuh, a St. Petersburg lawyer who lives there still with his oldest son, David, 38, and their chow dog, Menshi. “This place is from another galaxy, far, far away.”
Schuh says he, too, hopes one of his three children will someday take over ownership of the house.
“That’s the way it used to be — families always passed down homes,” he says.
Driftwood was the site of the earliest settlement in lower Pinellas County, in the mid 1850s. In the late 19th century, it became home to the county’s first post office and school.
Then in 1924, New York architect Mark Dixon Dodd moved to St. Petersburg with his wife and daughter, seeking a warm climate for his daughter’s health. He designed 19 Driftwood homes between 1937 and 1941. Most homes, built on roads that follow the contour of the shoreline, are constructed from wood frame and stucco. They bear Dodd’s signatures — wood-beamed cathedral ceilings, interior archways and fireplaces.
Laurie Macdonald’s home on Wildwood Lane is one of Dodd’s. Built in 1937, it has all of Dodd’s standard features and the original scored concrete block floor. An original Dodd painting — of sailboats at sea — is anchored to the wall above the fireplace.
“And it’s still in such beautiful shape,” says Macdonald, a conservation biologist who is now president of the Driftwood Property Owners Association.
Macdonald paid $84,000 for the one-story gray stucco in 1989; it was appraised by the county at $228,200 in January 2004. She was one of the lucky outsiders who found her way through Driftwood’s exclusive arch. She had contracted a Realtor to ask about buying a home in a neighborhood with the same charm as Driftwood. As it happened, the Realtor told her a Driftwood home was about to hit the market.
“The first time I saw it, it was like a fairytale,” says Macdonald, who shares her home with two cats, Nuit and Chris. “Living here, you feel the uniqueness and true character of the neighborhood.”
Two more homes were sold to outsiders in 2004, according to county officials. But Macdonald says it doesn’t happen often. And those who do buy in aren’t buying just a home, but a way of life.
Macdonald says homeowners take care of their property, keeping it in the family or selling to friends; neighbors have even switched homes in the past.
Next door, Lineberger leaves his house, crosses the narrow street and wanders down a wooded path hidden behind a gate with a sign that reads “No trespassing.” The path leads to the neighborhood’s private beach.
“I remember walking down this path when I was a kid,” he says. “And now I take my children down the same one.”
