In St. Petersburg, ‘Sunken Gardens Home’ is model for new construction
ST. PETERSBURG — Before having a new home designed for the neighboring lot, David and Rachel Wein made a list of what they liked and disliked about their current house.
“We realized we liked almost everything,” Rachel Wein said with a laugh.
The couple live in a house originally built for Sunken Gardens founder George Turner Sr., directly across the street from his St. Petersburg roadside attraction. It was designed to bring the 4-acre botanical paradise inside.
“It sometimes feels like we live in Sunken Gardens,” Rachel Wein said.
The Weins asked for their new dwelling to be a modern interpretation of their current one, just larger. The family plans to move in the fall, and the 1950 house they call “Sunken Gardens Home” will go on the market.
Today, the city-owned botanical garden, which its website describes as St. Petersburg’s oldest living museum, has more than 50,000 exotic tropical plants and birds from around the world, including a flamingo flock.
The attraction dates to the early 1900s, when Turner Sr. created a personal garden out of a drained lake that sat below sea level, which he considered sunken. That morphed into a nursery from which he sold fresh fruits and vegetables. As the garden grew and incorporated other plants, Turner Sr. charged visitors to stroll through it. The site eventually became a popular tourist stop.
In 1950, across the street from Sunken Gardens’ original front gate, Turner Sr. built a 3,200-square-foot house with large windows on both floors that, when open, allow breezes to keep the structure cool. Those windows also bring in the sounds of Sunken Gardens’ birds and the smell of its plants.
As the story goes, Rachel Wein said, the Turner family divvied up each day’s proceeds from the home’s basement. “$1 for you, $1 for you, $1 for you, and on and on.”
Soon after purchasing the home in 2013, the Weins uncovered a steel pipe in the front yard. Turner Sr. “was taking water from Sunken Gardens,” David Wein said. “Just siphoning it off. But he owned it.”
The Weins didn’t buy the home for its historic significance, they said.
“We have three kids, and it’s on a dead end where all the neighborhood kids learn to ride their bike,” Rachel Wein said. “You can walk to restaurants. It feels very urban, while still being in a shady area where there’s no cut-through traffic. It’s both secluded and also really connected.”
So, even as their kids grew and the house began to feel like it was shrinking, the Weins were reluctant to sell because they didn’t want to leave the block.
Then, in 2017, the neighboring lot went on the market after Hurricane Irma blew a tree through the rental home there. The Weins purchased the property, which their kids used as a playground until they decided to build a new home.
They charged the designer, Storyn Studio for Architecture, with creating a larger version of the Sunken Gardens Home that also blends into the neighborhood lined with medium-sized, mid-20th century houses.
“They were really interested in operable windows that are actually using the fresh air,” Storyn Studio’s Katice Helinski said, “So, as a result, you can hear the birds, all the birds” from Sunken Gardens. The new home is also being built close to the street, like the others on the block, and “with a welcoming front porch.”
So that the 4,300-square-foot home’s size doesn’t stand out, the front is one story that grows into a second story in the back.
“I’m biased,” Rachel Wein said, “but I think the idea of having a new home inspired by a historic home next door across from Sunken Gardens is pretty amazing.”
Of course, selling their current home and moving next door also means that the Weins can choose their new neighbor.
Rachel Wein said their main ask is that the next owner appreciates the Sunken Gardens Home as much as her family has. “Maybe there’s even someone from the Turner family that wants to have this house next. …There’s just a lot of really good feelings on this block and this neighborhood for the Turners and Sunken Gardens.”
