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The historical pink house is on its third life
By ALEXANDRA CALDWELL
| Article published on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/081308_cit-01.jpg) |
| Photo by ALEXANDRA CALDWELL |
| Trina Sears sits on the porch of the historical Henry Plant house in Clearwater. Sears saved the house twice, first from demolition and then she restored it after a fire. |
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CLEARWATER – The little pink house was destined to become a parking lot.
But history-lover Trina Sears decided to save the second-oldest house in Clearwater. Sears of Clearwater, bought the house from the city and spent the next year arranging to move it from 1342 S. Fort Harrison Ave. to 622 Belleview Blvd., Clearwater. In the summer of 2006, the house rode down the street on a flatbed truck to its new home.
But in July 2006, an electrical fire gutted the Victorian house.
“I was just finishing it up, doing the odds and ends and fixing up the foundation,” Sears said. “In fact, I was getting my mortgage that day, and then at 2 o’clock in the morning, ‘Your house burned down.’ ”
The fire started in the center of the house, Sears said, and went straight up. The claw-foot bathtub crashed down from the second floor during the fire, and smoke damaged the 100-year-old wood.
After a long battle with the city, she said, and two years of hard work, the pink house is restored.
Henry Plant, the Clearwater railroad tycoon, built the pink house around 1896, said Mike Sanders, Clearwater historian. It has unique Carpenter Gothic architecture, gingerbread, double hung windows and multiple gables.
Clearwater’s first photographer, Louis Ducro, was the home’s first owner, Sanders said. Ducro was the staff photographer for the Belleview Biltmore Hotel, which Plant also built.
Another notable owner was Rocco Grella, who was one of the original members of the John Philip Sousa marching band, Sanders said. Grella also was a band instructor at Clearwater High School, he said, and held symphony concerts for the town in his back yard.
Sanders said old houses like the Henry Plant house bring a community to life.
“I think it gives you a sense of who you are, and once you lose your history, you lose your identity,” Sanders said. “You have the sameness that most any other city would have, so I think all those pieces of history combine to give us character and identity.”
Sears agrees. Old buildings give people a sense of community, she said, and a sense of responsibility to care for them. So after the fire, she began the painstaking process of restoring the house.
Sears removed pieces of the house to clean them by hand, she said. She polished the metal window hardware, spray painted light fixtures, and scrubbed every surface to get rid of the smoke smell. She stained all the wood to hide the smoke stains and searched the country to replace the ruined wood.
“The flooring was replaced with hard pine that I got from barns in Georgia, like the old stuff, because you can’t get hard pine anymore. You can only re-cover it,” Sears said.
She milled the lumber for the outdoor siding then sand blasted it to bring out the grain and match the old wood.
A claw-footed bathtub replaced the one that fell through the floor. Period furniture accent the rooms. And a fresh coat of pink paint brightens its exterior. It was hard work, Sears said, but it was important to save the pink house.
“I think it gives hope that you can take on a battle; you don’t have to take the easy way out,” Sears said. “People can say, yes, we do have a historical house. People always knew it as the pink house, and after it survived the fire, it had to be pink.”
Correction:Changed Shears to Sears.
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Article published on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008
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