Saturday, September 7, 2013

Old Homes with History


I just love looking at  houses, one of the reasons I became a Real Estate agent or a Realtor as we are known when we pay all the dues to be fully accredited with the national, state and local boards.

Jacksonville has many older neighborhoods with different archetectural styles and there is a street near my office named Kelnepa Drive. It was a one street subdivision devised in the 1920's by a real estate developer and his wife. This is from the Metro Jacksonville site:

Lumber dealer Thomas M. Keller and his wife Ella Canipa Keller combined their surnames to coin the name "Kelnepa," which they gave to this block long subdivision.  Kelnepa was typical of many of the 1920's Florida land boom developments, born of speculation and left unfinished when the real estate bubble burst in 1927.  The Kellers employed Victor Zambetti, a contractor who owned the Art and Ornamental Stone Company, to handle the construction in Kelnepa.  The houses are highly unusual in their use of concrete blocks in conjunction with the Mediterranean Revival style.
Source: Jacksonville's Architectural Heritage, page 259

The above photo is from said article (which is originally from the book that is sourced which is such a cool book) so I went on Google Maps to see if I could find the map 'walking down the street' and I believe this is the same house. Apparently the Google maps photo is a bit outdated as the article is from 2010.

Doesn't the house look better now? And they kept the same original character of the house. And isn't it cool to think there was a real estate bubble that burst in the late twenties? History does repeat itself.

So cool. I love what I do.

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