Can a city force its residents to care about history and historical properties? Whether historical districts are the answer in Winter Haven stumps Lea Ellen DeWitt, her sister, and even city officials.

WINTER HAVEN | Granny was the strength, the nucleus, the center of the family.
An avid gardener and a resourceful cook, she had six children, 12 grandchildren, and one arm.
Her house — the one she lived in for 50 years — was built in 1908; Winter Haven was incorporated in 1911.
There are a number of reasons her house wasn't more protected from decay, most notably because the city doesn't have historic districts. The surrounding neighborhood, with houses as old as 113 years old, is not overseen by a historic board as it might have been in Lakeland.
In the wet air of a recent Saturday morning, Granny's house burned.

Granny, whose full name was Eva Hart, bought the house at 333 Ave. A NE, Winter Haven, in the late 1930s. She and her husband had rented through the Great Depression, but were finally able to purchase property. It was an accomplishment, her granddaughter, Lea Ellen DeWitt says.
DeWitt's eyes welled with tears recently at the thought of the house in flames.
"This was a tangible connection," DeWitt said. "This is where my mother lived when she was 14 years old. This is where my granny lived. Now, it's gone.
"It hit me hard."
DeWitt has her own theories on ways the house could have been preserved. It may have belonged in a museum she said, but most importantly, she said she wishes Winter Haven embraced the idea of historic districts.
DeWitt was born in 1956, her sister, Jane Sholine, who also lives in Lakeland, was born in 1962. They enjoyed more than 25 years visiting the house with their mother, Zada, until Granny died in 1987. The family sold the house within a year afterward.
The last listed owner of the property is Regina Turrentine, according to the Polk County Property Appraiser, who bought the house in 2003. She was unable to be reached for this story.
Hart kept the house pristine.
"She kept the house immaculate. If something broke, she fixed it," DeWitt said. "It was old, it was worn, but it was clean."
After the house left the family, Sholine said she would drive by and see it slowly becoming decrepit. The whole neighborhood was being affected but over the past 10 years, Sholine said 333 Ave. A NE had become especially dilapidated,
"Just the overgrowth. The brush was chest high," she said. "It looks like it could've been out in the woods. It is shocking that it was in downtown Winter Haven with that kind of growth.
"I was just appalled that a property could get into that condition."
Code enforcement was assigning fines and liens to Turrentine, but things weren't changing.
"Vacant property with (overgrowth) exceeding 12 inches," code enforcement reported in July 2011.
"At time of inspection, found broken windows, exterior entry door missing from frame," it reported in February 2013.
Turrentine had been charged more than $59,000 in code enforcement fines as of January 2013, according to Winter Haven code enforcement documents acquired by The Ledger.

Officials with the Winter Haven Fire Department reported that the house was unlivable after the fire. DeWitt said "unlivable" is an understatement.
Firefighters responded to a call to the two-story house about 5 a.m. on Aug. 10. The department stayed at the property for almost three hours.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, officials said. A sign in front of the house is asking for tips related to the possibility of arson.
Sholine said she's seen people walking behind the house when she's driven past. The fire department said it was vacant at the time of the fire.
Before the fire, the windows of the house were broken and it would have been easy for people to come and go, DeWitt added.
"There was some kind of hope that we could pull it out of the state it was in, but then, before we even had a chance to research it that much, it burned," DeWitt said.

Can a city force its residents to care about history and historical properties? Whether historical districts are the answer in Winter Haven stumps DeWitt, her sister, and even city officials.
Hart's family praises the city of Lakeland for its historic districts.
"When you drive down Granny's street, it's like if you went down Success Avenue (in the South Lake Morton Historic District) and just knocked down every third house all the way down the street," she says. "Like you never turned a hose on, never grew a flower, and never painted a house. And then you let everyone come in and put aluminum windows in and aluminum siding. It just gives me a great deal of respect for what Lakeland did."
Although historic districts don't give code enforcement any more power to control the condition of houses, Lakeland's senior planner, Troy Salisbury, says the districts motivate owners to take pride in a property's history.
"It's their responsibility as citizens in the neighborhood," Salisbury said. "But if a home starts deteriorating, it's going to be code enforcement's (responsibility). And while that can be very very frustrating to the historic preservation board and myself, that's what we have."
He added that districts' abilities to control what kind of renovations are done to homes helps keep architectural integrity intact, which in turn adds to that sense of pride.
"What we try to prevent is those types of homes where you can point out the ones that are so far out of place that they don't contribute to the fabric of the neighborhood," Salisbury said.
Although Winter Haven does have neighborhoods registered with the National Register of Historic Places, the city doesn't have local districts with individual boards like Lakeland, said Winter Haven Planning Manager Erin Tilghman.
These boards help control the kind of renovations and additions on historic houses.

Winter Haven officials have discussed adding this historic preservation step but a local historic preservation ordinance would have to first be passed through the planning commission and the city commission.
"The interest is growing," said Tilghman. "It's an interest that is growing nationwide. More and more people are calling about properties. They're looking for historic properties."
In terms of the condition of the overgrowth and the appearance of the property from an upkeep perspective, there isn't much a historic board can do other than encourage code enforcement to charge the property owner.
"It's a struggle we all deal with; if anyone has any suggestions we're open to that," Tilghman said. "It's a difficult thing to watch. When they're historic, it's valuable resources and craftsmanship. It's not something to be taken lightly."
The neighborhood surrounding 333 Ave. A NE was registered with the National Register in 2000. A quick search on the property appraiser's website reveals a neighborhood with houses 113 years old.
According to Salisbury, the idea of historic preservation isn't just about age. It's about preserving architectural styles that represent important moments in a city's timeline. Because there's no board to approve construction, some houses near 333 Ave. A NE have already transformed into less historical properties.
"When you don't have a historic district, not a preservation board, but a district, people change out the windows," DeWitt said. "They add goofy siding on. They make stupid looking additions. They add shingles that shouldn't be there. They put fiberglass front doors on."
She said the neighborhood's proximity to downtown should motivate the city to take some sort of action.
"I don't understand why they're spending money to revitalize downtown when they've got no residential areas that anyone is going to live in to want to walk downtown," she said.

Granny lost her left arm in the 1970s when a tumor became infected and she needed an amputation.
That didn't stop her raising a family, continuing to support them and herself as a seamstress after her husband walked out.
In January, Granny's daughter, Zada Hart Sholine, the mother of Dewitt and her sister, died of Alzheimer's disease.
Sholine's children took care of her in the last years of her life, just as she took care of Granny.
Her memory dissipated in front of her family for five years, yet even nearing her death, she remembered the house at 333 Ave. A NE.
"She would recognize a photo," DeWitt said. "She would say, 'This is where my mother lives. I want to go home. She needs me.'"
A cousin took Sholine for a final visit to the house in 2010, more than 100 years after it was built.
Vines and brush engulfed the property. Windows no longer existed. Zada took a long look at the house she grew up in.
She didn't recognize it.
