by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
Two years ago, Robert Eagle and Tina Musico were about to leave Jacksonville for a bigger city when they made the fortuitous mistake of mentioning their dream of owning and operating a bed and breakfast to their real estate agent. It turned out to be the kind of slip that changed their life.
“She said we had to check out this place on Riverside,” said Eagle, the proprietor in charge of the nuts and bolts reconstruction of the 1902 mansion. “When we saw it, we fell in love.”
So he and Musico bought the former row house built a year after The Great Fire. Then they gutted it.
“It was borderline condemned,” said Eagle. “I mean, it was a real mess.”
But it wasn’t the kind of mess that couldn’t be repaired. And the couple’s collective passion for restoring a once-splendid home to its original glory took hold.
What has resulted is the culmination of complimentary talents coalescing to reconstruct a five-bedroom luxury bed and breakfast on Oak Street. The concept is to offer the gentility of a southern B&B with the modern conveniences of a nice hotel. Eagle, a computer programmer who grew up learning about contracting from his dad in Boston, and Musico, originally from Pittsburgh who has spent most of her professional career in retail marketing for Stein Mart, combined talent and resources to make the idea work.
The opening is slated for next month, almost exactly two years after Eagle and Musico bought the house for $200,000 and began the arduous permitting process. A new piece of stained glass was recently pieced into the front facing Oak Street. Originally, the home faced Riverside Avenue, but an addition was added to the front 20 years ago when the house was converted into an apartment complex. So the entrance was reversed and Eagle and Musico live in the addition. The rest is for the guests.
“We’re trying to sell this concept to corporate clients,” said Musico, who has a lived in Jacksonville off and on for about seven years. “We think that if a company wants to really impress a recruit or a client in for the weekend, a B&B like ours is a great alternative.”
There’s a library that Musico says will be great for brainstorming sessions and a large dining room table will be converted to host meetings.
The bedrooms are big. Much bigger than you would normally see in a B&B. There’s the green room, lover’s lane, the 1854 room (named after the date of the furniture), the tree house and the St. Johns room, complete with a river view. Each is decorated differently to Musico’s eclectic taste. The furniture was purchased from antique shops all over Jacksonville. And all the rooms have flat screen DVD-ready televisions and wine refrigerators.
“What we tried to do is go sort of eclectic and upscale,” said Musico. “Not so much dripping Victorian like you see in most B&Bs.”
Musico said she wants guests to feel welcome and comfortable spending time in the common rooms. A party deck will eventually be built out of the second floor, facing the river.
According to Eagle, about 90 percent of the home was solid when they “opened it up.” In fact, they were amazed at how solid it was. So stripping it down to the foundation gave them a good platform to work from. They have done everything since, from new heating and air conditioning to new pipes and electric; about 18 months of renovations.
Restoring a home that was built in 1902 isn’t that easy. The primary reason is that the standards were different. One example is the railings which were 33 inches high instead of 36 inches, so it’s hard to find the right pieces. The same goes for baseboards and crowns, doors aren’t made that size any more. In fact, there were only two doors left in the whole house.
“We found 26 solid eight-foot cypress paneled doors from an architectural salvage yard in New Orleans for a home built in 1908,” said Musico. And on the north side of the treehouse room, which looks out onto a giant oak tree, Musico has paneled glass exposing weights that operate the windows, like in 1902.
Eagle handled a lot of the permitting that goes along with restoring a historic home in a historic district. And he said, overall, it was a pretty smooth run.
Bonnie Grissett, who runs Riverside Avondale Preservation, says RAP is always enthusiastic about projects that beautify historic homes in the area, something that makes the quality of life better for everybody.
RAP, started in 1974, is an advisory committee that makes recommendations to the City’s Historic Preservation Commission whenever renovations or developments are proposed in the neighborhood. Historic areas have specific aesthetic guidelines that must be met in order to keep the status as a historic place. Grissett is active in making sure Riverside and Avondale are “livable communities” where everything looks good and works.
“Tina and Bob had a great vision for what should be done with the house on Oak Street,” said Grissett. “So we were happy to help in any way as they improve the area.”
There are four other B&Bs in the neighborhood, the House on Cherry Street, the St. Johns House, the Cleary-Dickert House and the Plantation Manor Inn. One more B&B on Downing Street is currently in the early planning stages.
“We have been working so hard to convince people that it makes sense to keep historic design a top priority,” said Grissett. “And now that people can see what a positive impact it has on the whole community,” they are working to continue it.
No greater evidence for the impact RAP has on keeping the livable community concept alive is the new Publix shopping center on Riverside Avenue. The original plan called for a Publix on one end and a pharmacy on the other with a massive parking lot in the middle.
“We said, ‘No way,’” said Grissett. “And when we worked with the developer and the City to develop a good looking, pedestrian friendly shopping center, everybody loved it.”
The biggest winners in that move are Musico and Eagle, whose new B&B is on the south end of the new Publix. According to Grissett, that kind of planning means property values increase everywhere.
RAP also runs the Riverside Avondale Development Organization, which buys and restores homes in the area to sell as moderate income housing.
“That has been a major catalyst for improvement in the area,” said Grissett.
And the rules are not so rigid that people who are renovating homes can’t get what they want. Grissett said that about 25 percent of proposed renovations are overruled because they violate the design plan. But 75 percent, with enough compromise by both parties, can usually be made to work.
“We were thrilled at how well we were able to work with RAP,” said Musico. “They were excited about what we were doing and we share the same artistic vision for the house and the area.”
Eventually, Musico wants to garner support for an alliance of B&Bs in the area, so as to put Riverside on the map as a tourist destination nationwide. And she is already planning to advertise in tourism publications and national magazines like Southern Living. And she will continue to market to corporate clients. Eagle, who is currently working on a project in New Orleans with his company Consulting Strategies, Inc. will continue to keep his eyes open for deals like the one he got on 26 cypress doors.
“We’re excited,” said Musico. “We’ve put everything into this and we think it’s going to work.”