by Roane Beard
For the last seven months, Randy Bullock has experienced first-hand what it’s like to renovate an old house.
“It’s hell,” he says, “and it’s a lot of fun.”
If you can identify with that, you’ve probably been through the renovation process yourself. Randy and his wife Sunnaree have been going through it for over seven months in the historic Victorian home they bought in North Hill last year, and the best word they have to describe the process is “adventure.”
“If you talk to anyone who has renovated a house, they’ll tell you it’s a lot of work,” says Randy, “and it is. It can be stressful. But it’s also a lot of fun. You’re always learning things, learning new skills. And you’re trying to make the concept that you have for the house become reality. So it’s fun, but at the same time it’s enormously stressful.”
Randy and Sunnaree had been looking for the right house for over two years before they found it. They had lived in Pensacola since 1992, when Randy accepted a position as a cardiovascular perfusionist at Sacred Heart Hospital. Sunnaree, then a medical dosimetrist, went back to school, earned a degree in pharmacy, and took a job at Walgreen’s.
“Initially, we weren’t that serious about looking for a house, but as time went by we became very excited by it,” says Sunnaree. “We decided to find the location we wanted to live in first, then find the house we wanted. It was difficult. I happened to be driving around one day out of frustration, and just stumbled on this house. I couldn’t believe this house was for sale. This is a dream come true for us. We never thought we’d be able to live in a Victorian home.”
The Bullocks had comparatively modest goals for the renovations to the house. They wanted to make it a comfortable place to live, while retaining a historic Victorian feel. Most of the house was built out of beautiful heartwood pine, but had been painted over several times throughout the years. They wanted to bring back the original beauty of the wood. Also, the kitchen and bathrooms were antiquated and needed considerable modification if they were going to transform the house into a comfortable home.
Beginning the task of changing the existing house into the home they envisioned meant a considerable investment of time, energy and money. Over the next seven months, they worked with more than fifteen specialists with the expertise and experience needed to do the job: painters, carpenters, a kitchen designer, an interior designer, a plumber, and a host of other workmen and consultants. They also picked up the tools themselves, stripping paint, driving nails, and working with the new heartwood pine imported from Nicaragua to mach the house’s original wood. And they did it all while living there.
“We moved in on August 15,” says Sunnaree, “and lived in the original kitchen for a month. Then we lived in a kitchenless state for three and a half months. The kitchen was the first thing we did. That was the toughest part, and we wanted to get the toughest part of it over with. There was so much energy when we bought this house, and we wanted to take advantage of it. It was difficult, because the kitchen is the heart of the home, for us.”
Renovating the kitchen created a host of problems; problems they expected, such as the inconvenience of having a house full of workmen and no place to cook, and problems they didn’t. The new Sub-Zero refrigerator went bad almost immediately after they bought it, spoiling several hundred dollars worth of food. The heartwood pine door warped from water damage, even though the contractor assured them it wouldn’t happen. And the expensive new granite countertop was cut to the wrong size, leaving a thumb sized space between the countertop and a cabinet wall.
“The problem with the countertop was infuriating,” says Randy. “The contractor was just going to fill it in, but I told them that wasn’t good enough. They even brought the president of the company in to look at it, and he said the gap was within acceptable limits, and he wasn’t going to throw out this entire piece of granite over it. Our kitchen designer, Frank Kay, finally came in and convinced the guy to make the proper repair.”
The problems with the kitchen renovation drove home the importance of having the right people on the job.
“The right people make all the difference,” says Randy. “I can’t stress that enough. It’s worth looking around and checking recommendations. Using Frank Kay, our kitchen designer, was a great choice. He made the whole process easier, not just the incident with the contractor. Even with good help like Frank, there has been stress throughout the process. Managing people, and making sure they do their jobs right, is stressful. Because they don’t always do it right. But for me, the most stressful thing is if you have to do anything in a hurry.”
Which, of course, they do. They entered the house in the 2001 North Hill Tour of Homes. On April 28, the tour will come through and dozens of people will look at the house, see what the Bullocks have done with it, and learn about the history of the houses in the North Hill Historical District. That’s left Randy and Sunnaree scrambling to get everything done on time.
For all stresses in the renovation process, the Bullocks are hardly alone. Local builder Jim Martin, owner of Martin and Owen, says that renovation fever has caught on all over Pensacola.
“We didn’t do many renovations until last year,” he says. “This year we’ll probably do twenty. We get about three calls a week about renovation projects. I think that a lot of people are finding that they can stay at home and renovate what they have downtown and East Hill, and do it for less than what it would take to buy new land and build a new home.”
The allure of renovation isn’t limited to homeowners, though. More and more businesses are renovating existing structures for commercial use instead of building new offices. And more and more mixed-use projects are springing up around Pensacola; structures that combine commercial and residential spaces within the same building, such as a storefront with an apartment above it.
“Building for mixed-use has been going on for a long time,” says David DelGallo of DelGallo-Morette Construction Company. “Years and years ago the Kline Jewelry store downtown was mixed-use, as were a number of buildings on Palafox. There will always be a need for it. Usually, you can build for mixed-use a little less expensively than you can renovate for it, but property values are coming into play. There’s a growing trend that a lot of people would like to live downtown, but it can be very costly to build a residence there.”
Real-estate prices are making renovating for multi-use is a popular option for many of the growing number of people looking to move into the downtown area. The Aragon Court project, occupying twenty acres at Ninth Avenue and Romana Street, has been a source of inspiration for the trend. The project envisions a variety of residences, office space, commercial, and mixed-use structures to create a community within walking distance of downtown, and was undertaken by the city to attract full-time residents to the downtown area. Many of the multi-use renovation projects currently underway in the downtown area will have a similar impact.
Martin and Owen is currently renovating the old Sluggo’s building into a mixed-used storefront and private apartment, while DelGallo-Morette has a number of renovation projects going on downtown, such as their project to renovate the old Shanahan’s building into a mixed-use office and residential space. They’re also converting two 45,000 square foot warehouses on Main Street and Commendencia into a mixed-use structure; the first two floors will be for commercial lease, while the 3rd and 4th floors will be condominiums. If you live there, you just might have the shortest commute in town.
Renovation projects, particularly those going on in the downtown area, have a positive environmental and cultural impact as well as an economic one, says Stephen Ritz of Gulf Coast Building Contractors. He owns the historic Sacred Heart building on 12th avenue, and is a vocal proponent of preserving existing structures for their value as historical resources and for the environmental impact preservation can have.
“You can be a conservationist by renovating existing buildings instead of building new ones,” he says. “It takes a tremendous amount of energy to make raw materials. The amount of energy that goes into making a ton of steel is staggering. So when you go in and build from scratch, you expend a huge amount of energy that you wouldn’t have spent had you renovated an existing structure.”
The old Sacred Heart building is a perfect example of Stephen’s values shaping reality. Sacred Heart Hospital was one of the most modern hospitals of the era when it was built in 1914, and served as the primary hospital for Northwest Florida at it’s 12th avenue location. Stephen bought the building in 1980 with the intention of leasing it out, which required renovation.
“When we started renovating, the building was in about the same condition as when it was built,” he says. “Throughout the process, we’ve tried to maintain the original character and preserve its historical value. That’s why it’s listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.”
Renovating buildings downtown into mixed-use residential and commercial structures is a particularly effective way of conserving the environment. Renovators conserve energy by using existing materials while simultaneously fighting urban sprawl, a problem that is having a negative environmental impact all over the country.
“Individuals do an enormous amount of environmental damage simply from the amount of space we take up,” Stephen says. “Individual residences have consumed thousands of acres of land around Pensacola. We could do a lot for the environment simply by living in the cities and using the resources that are there. People forget what cities are good for. When you live close together, you have a lower impact on the environment. You’re also close to the things that you need, like your job, your schools, and shopping.”
Whatever the reason, renovation fever has struck Pensacola, as businesses and families alike look to the buildings in Pensacola’s past to carry them comfortably into the future. One thing that they will all have in common is that the renovation process will be an adventure.
“Have you seen ‘The Money Pit’?” asks Randy Bullock, referring to the classic ‘80s Tom Hanks flick about a young couple trying to remodel the house from hell. “Renovating our place wasn’t that bad, at all, but I think the idea was very true to life. They started out with very clear ideas of what they wanted, and they were forced to adjust them. That’s true here. You have to be able to compromise to a certain extent. At some point things are just going to look as bad as it’s going to get, but in the end everyone does their best, and the end result is beautiful.”