The Blalock House, a historically designated structure on the island of Venice, has just come on the market at $ 877,700 through Martha Pike of Michael Saunders & Co. Built in 1926 by a man who would become the city's first elected mayor, the house, recently expanded, has four bedrooms and 3.5 baths in 3,686 square feet. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 2-8-2013.
Venice residents treasure their Mediterranean-inspired homes that date to the 1920s real estate boom. Many are beautifully restored and well maintained.
But there is old, and then there is old. At the historically designated Blalock House, which once was home to Venice’s second mayor, owners Joe and Susan Reed were up to the task of restoring the house and expanding it, while being sensitive to the original, two-story structure. (FOR A GALLERY OF IMAGES, CLICK ON THIS LINK.)
“I kind of rescue old houses,” said Susan Reed, whose first restoration project was a 1774 house in New Hampshire. She and her family spend the summer months in Deerfield, N.H., now in a house that was built in the 1826.
Joe Reed is an electrical contractor for large nonresidential projects, and Susan Reed’s list of completed “rescue” projects includes a 1926 house just down the back alley from the Blalock House.
But family needs and desires change, and such is the case with the Reeds. They recently bought a beachfront house — it will need to be rescued — and have listed the property, at 241 Harbor Drive S., at $877,700. With its wall, additions and guest house, it is something of an in-city estate.
A pool pavilion has been added to the historic Blalock House. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 2-8-2013.
In adding a master suite wing to the north side of the Blalock House, “it was important to make it flow, but give us some modern amenities,” said Susan Reed.
“I tried to tie the two together.”
“She did a great job with that,” said Realtor Martha Pike, of Michael Saunders & Co., the Reeds’ listing agent. The Reeds removed an original window to create a doorway to the new wing, which is a favorite play area for the grandchildren.
“I am not one for tearing down walls and taking away from what this house is,” said Susan Reed. “I am hoping the new owners can really appreciate the 1926” nature of the house.
It was pristine for a recent reporter’s tour, but Susan Reed admits that Pike is asked to give 24 hours’ notice before the house can be shown to prospective buyers. Otherwise, toys tend to fill the spaces.
The family also enhanced the pool area with a party pavilion they call “the colonnade,” where year-old bulldogs, sisters Lucy and Gracie, spend their days. They also added an enclosed porch to the guest house in the back. Landscaping creates a resort-like ambience within the property, which now has 3,650 air-conditioned square feet, excluding the guest house.
New windows, new plumbing and new wiring are among the other improvements the Reeds have made.
The living room of the Blalock House, a historically designated structure on the island of Venice. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 2-8-2013.
“This was the first year I thought we actually were going to relax and enjoy this house,” said Susan Reed, but that proved not to be the case. When the Reeds bought the house 12 years ago, the original windows were still in it. “We sealed them over, thinking we would get an opportunity to try and rescue them,” she said. “For so many reasons, to reclaim them was going to be impossible. And they lacked efficiency. So we ended up having impact-resistant, tinted, top-of-the-line windows installed last year. We had to tear out all the plaster and reframe, and then once we were in the walls, we replaced all the old wiring.
“Plumbing — this is the year throughout the city that the old cast-iron plumbing is giving way. So all of that has been taken care of.” She said owners of Venice’s boomtime houses can expect the same expensive upgrade soon, if they haven’t done it already.
The Blalock House was one of the first built in Venice’s Venezia Park section as the city developed in early 1926, and a few of the original cabinets are still in it. The home was first occupied by George and Helen Youngberg and their four children. Youngberg was a civil engineer whom the BLE put in charge of building roads as well as making Roberts Bay into a port. The port never materialized, but he oversaw the dredging of the channel through Casey’s Pass where the Venice Jetties jut into the Gulf.
Soon, the Blalocks took up residence in the house. During the boom, “Jim Tom” Blalock was elected cashier of the Venice-Nokomis Bank, founded by Dr. Fred Albee, when it moved from Nokomis to Venice, according to historian Janet Snyder Matthews in her 1989 book, “Venice: Journey from Horse and Chaise.” The title refers to the settlement’s name in 1868.
The new master bedroom in the Blalock House. Staff photo / Harold Bubil.
As was common in the 1920s boom, the bank’s board of directors was stocked with developers — in this case, the executives of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. They were prominent members of the community, until the Florida land boom's house of cards collapsed around them. A couple of years later, the pension-less BLE membership saw to it that most of them were relieved of their leadership roles.
In late 1926 and early 1927, as many stylish but suddenly penniless members of the investor class limped back north in their Fords and Packards, the Blalocks were among the merchants and laborers who “stuck it out” as fulltime residents of “an empty city wth defaulting mortgages,” as Matthews put it in her book. Jim Tom, 32, was elected mayor in 1929 — the first mayor was appointed by the BLE — and served until 1941; only Smyth Brohard (1957-71) served longer as Venice mayor. Jim Tom, a native of Valdosta, Ga., whose childhood obsession was baseball, also owned an insurance agency that bore his name, and Blalock Park is named for him.
A Tuscan-themed mural by Venice artist B. J. Carson at the home of Joe and Susan Reed on Harbor Drive South in Venice. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 2-8-2012.
Ethel Blalock was a formidable citizen of Venice in her own right. During the Great Depression, in an effort to boost the spirits of the town’s residents, she produced a Christmas pageant that became a 60-year tradition at Venice-Nokomis Methodist Church. She was a Sunday school teacher and a member of the Women’s Missionary Society. She was known to drive local children to church, and was loved for her sense of humor.
As her husband’s business partner, she was the Venice Area Business and Professional Women’s Club’s “Woman of the Year” in 1954. She was one of 75 people selected as “Patriots of Sarasota County” in 1976, the bicentennial year.
She died in 1992 at 95, and her estate sold the house that year.
