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Advertisement

 1. News
 2. /
 3. Tampa


FROM A PLASTIC CHAIR IN HIS TAMPA YARD, JERRY WATCHED EVERYTHING CHANGE

Take a trip down West Zelar Street and you’ll see a microcosm of what’s
happening all around South Tampa and other neighborhoods in the city.
106
58
13


106
58
13



West Zelar Street serves as a microcosm of what's happening around Tampa, but
especially in parts of South Tampa. Of the 18 homes on the block between South
Manhattan Avenue and South Hubert Avenue, 14 have either been razed or replaced
since 2000. A 1950 home was recently demolished on the vacant lot pictured here.
[ LUIS SANTANA | Times ]
By
 * Mark KatchesTimes Editor


Published Earlier today|Updated 4 hours ago
Advertisement


TAMPA — Sitting in a plastic lawn chair in front of his South Tampa bungalow in
2018, Jerry Ohmstede smiled and squinted into the afternoon sun.

Jerry kept his chair next to his wife Betty’s. Together, on the patchy grass,
their plastic seats formed a loose semicircle with a third reserved for frequent
visitors on narrow West Zelar Street.

Bill the mail carrier stopped every day on his route. He handed Jerry letters
and plopped beside him, meaning everyone else’s mail would have to wait.
Daughter Mariane checked in at least weekly. Dog-walking neighbors traded news.

On days like today, though, it was just Jerry. And from this vantage point, in
his plastic perch, he had watched a neighborhood transform.



Jerry and Betty bought their place for $7,750 in 1957. By late 2018, the couple
had been married 64 years and lived in the same spot for 61 of them.

They filled their backyard with exotic plants. Pink, yellow and candy-stripe
plumerias bloomed alongside angel trumpets, sending sweet perfume into the
dampened air. Betty liked to wear the flowers in her hair.

Their home was one of the few original bungalows left on the block. But for how
much longer?

Newly diagnosed with dementia, Betty’s mind had been slipping. Jerry needed a
walker to get from his front door to the yard. Builders kept calling, nagging
him to sell. Small houses like theirs tended to attract buyers for only one
reason: the land.

And bigger homes were rising on both sides of their property. One of them was
mine.

In a white-hot real estate market, this scene plays out all over the city, from
Beach Park to Tampa Heights. From West Tampa to south of Gandy. Try driving a
few blocks in South Tampa without encountering a port-a-potty. New construction
has propelled housing prices into the stratosphere. The land alone under houses
like Jerry’s is worth nearly 100 times what the first homeowners paid in 1950.
And as new homes rise, neighbors are caught in a fierce debate about how these
older neighborhoods are changing.

Jerry sat outside with Corki, his old Corgi. The dog, in a fit of
territory-marking, kicked grass in my direction with her little hind legs.



“Don’t mind her,” he said. “Is this going to be your house?”

“It is.”

“They sure are moving fast.”

With heavy equipment pounding the earth around him, Jerry had been sandwiched by
construction dust and noise. He’d already endured months of back-up sirens,
whirring machinery and the staccato of nail guns by the time we met.

I started at the Tampa Bay Times in mid-August 2018 and came across Zelar Street
on a bike ride. We bought our lot two weeks later, just as the builder poured
the foundation. The previous home, built the same year as Jerry’s, had been
wiped out months before.

Coming from Oregon, we wanted to be in an established neighborhood, a newer
home, a good school zone. Our son’s elementary school would be about a block
away. The middle school was a short walk past the Little League fields and Plant
High minutes from home by car. Jerry’s street checked all the boxes.


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The original houses on this street wouldn’t have worked for us. But on this
single block, three out of four homes since 2000 had been razed and replaced
with open floor plans and spacious kitchens fit for a modern family.

In his prime, Jerry had built his own addition, tiled his own bathroom and sent
his three young kids up a ladder to reroof the house. Now in his twilight years,
sitting back and watching others build provided a source of endless amusement.
He positioned his chair to get the best view.



On weekends, I’d drop by to check the progress, from the framing to the
drywalling to the flooring and tiling. Jerry would almost always be outside,
watching contractors come and go.

“Looks like we’ll finally be neighbors soon,” he said shortly after New Year’s
Day in 2019. The next month, we settled in.

Shaded by mature oaks and featuring streets with haphazard sidewalks, this
pocket of South Tampa could be easy to overlook. Zelar spans only four blocks.
Ibises, herons and egrets pluck through lawns. Golf carts amble by, hauling kids
to school and baseball games. Today, the two-story homes sell for up to $2
million. Tear-downs can cost more than $750,000. That’s nearly twice as
expensive as in 2018.

A few blocks north are pricier homes. Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier
has been spotted pushing his youngest child in a stroller. A block beyond him,
an American flag sways from the sturdy brick facade belonging to University of
South Florida president Rhea Law. Kiermaier’s morning walk takes him past the
stately house of Bucs general manager Jason Licht.

But that all feels a world apart from Jerry’s orbit, where he acted as the
neighborhood guide.

Looking for a good mechanic? Jerry says try McLeod’s Auto Service. The owner’s
family lived across the street in a little house, since replaced.



Worried about hurricanes? Jerry says he’d always stood his ground during the
worst storms.

The towering oak in his front yard that canopies the street? Jerry says he
planted that as an acorn.


Jerry's house as captured by Google street view shows the plastic chairs in the
yard. [ Google Maps ]

***

Before there were many houses in Tampa’s mid-peninsula, rattlesnakes slithered
around pine trees and through orange groves. Home construction took off after
World War II in neighborhoods like Sunset Park, Culbreath Heights and Virginia
Park.

The first single-story homes built on Zelar Street weren’t going to win a beauty
contest. They were squat starter houses for young couples and military
personnel, built at a breakneck pace. They included two bedrooms, one bathroom,
a space heater and a carport. With 1,000 square feet of living space, the homes
were predictable enough that at least three of the neighbors likely had the
exact same floor plan.

Mel Larsen, owner of Clair-Mel Builders, got approval to build each house for as
little as $5,000. The company broke ground on Zelar in January 1950 and put up
28 bungalows in about a year. Prices started at $7,600. According to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics, that would be $95,816 today.



Thanks to the G.I. Bill, anyone with military service could own one with a down
payment of $85.


A June 18, 1950 ad in the Tampa Sunday Tribune promotes the new homes built on
Zelar that year, including Jerry's house. A builder got approval to construct 28
homes, all with 2 bedrooms and 1 bath, and broke ground in January 1950. Jerry
would be the second owner of 4313 W. Zelar Street. And he lived on the block
longer than anybody. [ Times archives ]

***

As these homes go, so do their histories, and so do the histories of the people
who lived there — despite our best efforts to hold on.

Jerry grew up near the airport when it was still Drew Field. He rode a motorized
scooter to Plant High, where he served as a technical sergeant in the ROTC.

After high school, he deployed during the Korean War as a fireman on the USS
Mountrail, a Naval transport ship. On shore leave in Southern California he met
Betty Lou Dolezal. He was 19. She was 16. They wrote love letters that their
kids still have. When the Mountrail came back to San Diego, Jerry hitchhiked to
Los Angeles to see Betty, who worked as a telephone operator. They married in
Southern California in 1954 and moved to Tampa, within a few blocks of MacDill
Air Force Base. The loud planes prompted them to relocate to Zelar Street.


Jerry and Betty Ohmstede in Los Angeles in 1954, around the time they got
married. They moved to Tampa soon after and bought their home on Zelar Street in
1957, where they lived for more than six decades. [ Courtesy of Greg Ohmstede ]


Betty served lunch to the children at nearby Mabry Elementary. Jerry worked for
the U.S. Postal Service and taught his kids how to change brake pads and rotate
tires. He’d salvage scraps of wood in the neighborhood and find ways to
repurpose it. Mariane remembers sitting cross-legged in the street, making
pencil drawings of their house. The neighborhood kids spent their afternoons
climbing trees.

“We swung from the branches like we were Tarzan,” she said.

Jerry eventually became Postmaster. When he retired, the couple traveled.

But not anymore. Mariane says her mom started fading years before her dementia
diagnosis in 2018. Jerry took her on slow afternoon strolls, both pushing
walkers with Corki puttering beside them. The ritual became more laborious, and
less frequent. At home, Betty tripped over Corki a couple of times and broke
bones.

She died at 86 in the house where she raised her three children on July 10,
2021.

In the days after, Jerry, now 90, retreated to his bedroom and sobbed, according
to Mariane.

You’ve heard stories about couples together as long as Betty and Jerry dying
within a few days of each other. Though brokenhearted, Jerry vowed to press on.
He had put on a new roof and made plans.

“I’m going to stay in this house 10 more years,” he told our family. No one had
lived on the block longer than Jerry.



He booked tickets to visit his son Greg and his family for Thanksgiving in North
Carolina and to see a doctor for his ailing back.

But a toothache was the more pressing concern. He needed a root canal, and the
procedure went horribly wrong. Jerry got an infection that made his cheek
balloon. He was rushed to Tampa General and given antibiotics, but it was too
late. He went home. Like Betty, he died there, 95 days after her.


Jerry Ohmstede and his wife of 67 years, Betty Ohmstede. They were married in
1954, bought their home on West Zelar Street in Tampa in 1957 and lived there
until they died. [ Courtesy of Greg Ohmstede ]

***

Nearly 5,000 residential demolition permits have been issued in Tampa in the
last decade — including 709 in 2021. That’s the most in any single year since at
least 2005, according to city data.

“Having all of these homes torn down is a wrinkle we haven’t had before,” says
Tampa historian Rodney Kite-Powell, “and the pace is really incredible.”

A blogger has tried to keep up with “The McMansioning of South Tampa.” About
2,700 razed dwellings are pictured. Some of the lost homes are majestic and sad.
Many, though, were tired and untended. The sheer volume is beyond what a single
blogger could chronicle. Ten of the 14 homes knocked down this century on Zelar
aren’t depicted on the site’s map. Even so, the layers upon layers of red pins
are striking.



A blogger has mapped more than 2,700 razed homes in Tampa. It's not a
comprehensive list, but the layers of red pins on the map illustrate a trend.
[ Google Maps ]

Kite-Powell compares the construction spurt with the building boom following
World War II. After the war, the city saw an influx of people moving from all
over the country. Now families come to South Tampa because they want to be
shaded by tall trees and surrounded by quality schools. Historically
low-interest rates fueled the surging market.

Not everyone is happy. Search the local Nextdoor site for the term “McMansions”
and you’ll encounter one of the more passionate running discussions in the city.
When a one-story home came on the market at the start of the pandemic, neighbors
implored the owner to seek a buyer who would maintain it. “I beg you not to sell
it to a builder that will level it and build a ridiculously oversized McMansion
that ruins the charm of our neighborhood,” wrote Lisa Donaldson. “Please.”

When another home was slated for demolition, scores of neighbors chimed in. “I
was born in Tampa in 1952,” said William Webb. “Whoever they are ruining our
city with these damn McMansions makes me ill.” And Diana Browning: “Tampa has
sold its soul to DEVELOPERS.” She went on to blame the ills of flooding,
traffic, crime and higher taxes on the larger houses.



Others counter that the older homes are no longer functional and that the newer
ones raise the value of those around them. “The curmudgeons will always complain
… until they are ready to cash out,” posted Marc Edelman. “Tampa is progressing
for the better.”

To the extent there is a problem, I suppose I’m part of it. Our two-story,
3,692-square foot home replaced a house not even a third its size.


A couple blocks east from Jerry's house on Zelar, more new construction is
happening on lots where smaller homes have been torn down. [ LUIS SANTANA |
Times ]

Bill Heilig, who lives in one of the original bungalows on Zelar, likes the way
the block has changed. In 1980, before turning 30, he relocated from upstate New
York with his wife, Pam. She became a popular art teacher at Mabry and later
Jefferson High.

“We were the younger people then,” said Heilig, now 72, and widowed. “Most of
the people on the street were Jerry’s age or older. There’s a lot of young
families now, and that has added life to the neighborhood.”

***

With Jerry and Betty gone, it would be only a matter of time before their house
became another pin on the map of vanquished Tampa homes.



“It was a great place to grow up and a great neighborhood for mom and dad to
raise us,” their eldest son Greg Ohmstede said. “But you have to move on.”

Normally when a home falls, there’s some warning. First a “For Sale” sign, then
a permit box posted in the yard. Orange mesh or tarp encircles trees to be
spared. None of that had happened when Jerry’s house came crashing down after
sunrise on July 11, 2022.

Here was the demolition crew, a year and a day after Betty died. A worker
climbed into a multi-ton home crusher, thrust the joystick forward and plowed
through the front of 4313 W. Zelar.

Like an agitated T-Rex, steel jaws tore through the wood, glass and metal,
mangling the air conditioner, crushing the bathtub, toppling the brand-new roof
and burying the leftover belongings no one had wanted. A white plastic lawn
chair was flipped upside down.

Underneath the rubble lay the bed that Jerry slept in, and died in.


Heavy construction equipment plowed through Jerry and Betty Ohmstede's house,
the day after the anniversary of Betty's death. If you look closely, you can see
a white plastic lawn chair tipped upside down toward the upper left corner of
the rubble. [ Mark Katches ]

Only weeks later did orange mesh cordon off Jerry’s tree and a couple of Betty’s
tropical plants in the backyard, bringing some solace to worried neighbors.



Mariane, who is now caring for 14-year-old Corki, hadn’t yet mustered the
courage to drive by.

“That’s my childhood,” she said, “gone.”

***

The day after Jerry’s funeral, Greg stood in the front yard watching boisterous
kids, who recently had moved across the street, etch colored chalk into the
sidewalk.

Greg planned to sell the home to people connected to longtime neighbors on the
block. It was one small way to keep the family vibe intact.

The deal went through in April for $600,000. A month later, a home on a smaller
lot two blocks east on Zelar closed for $760,000. It’s gone now, too. Another
port-a-potty in the yard.

Before heading back to North Carolina with his family, Greg made an offer of
another kind.

“My mom loved her plumerias,” he said. “If you’d like any clippings, feel free
to get some.”

We spoke for a few more minutes about the neighborhood before Greg returned to
Betty’s plants. “Just help yourself. Mom would love that.”

On the anniversary of Betty’s death, I took a pair of shears into her yard,
slicing three segments, each about a foot long.

To this day, that plumeria plant remains. But there’s no orange mesh protecting
it. Crews haven’t returned to finish clearing the lot. The day will come.

I plucked away the leaves and kept the stalks dry, for about a week, allowing
calluses to form, signaling they were ready.



I thought of Jerry and Betty as I gently screwed the three clippings into
separate pots of soil, before nudging them into a sunny spot in our side yard,
just as the light began to disappear behind Jerry’s tree.


Betty's plumerias are doing just fine in one gallon pots. Soon they will be
replanted into larger pots or directly into the earth. [ Mark Katches ]
Up next:Driver hits, kills pedestrian in Tampa, police say


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 * Mark Katches
   
   Editor

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------






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