717 South Newport Avenue
This classic Hyde Park vernacular-style home, built in 1908, gradually suffered great disrepair. The front became overgrown with shrubs and greenery so that the facade was mostly obscured. A broken pool screen covered the backyard full of old children’s plastic play structures.
The Faber family felt fortunate to find and purchase this property as a short sale in 2016. They were looking for an opportunity to create a home from scratch for their three young children in Hyde Park. Restoration was very important to them, and they knew they had found a hidden gem.
A couple of stories from the Tampa Tribune in August of 1927 ran about a burglary here. One was headlined: Bold Burglar Back on Job in Hyde Park
“Walter Whitehead, confessed daylight burglar, yesterday led sheriff’s deputies to a jewelry store at 1603 Seventh Avenue, where a $400 diamond ring and a diamond stick pin, stolen from the home of John A. B. Anderson, 717 South Newport Avenue, were recovered.” It was reported that the robber came into the bedroom and woke up Mrs. Anderson at 3:00am. She lay in bed stunned until he left, when she reported the crime!
The front portion of the—up to the dining room—are all original rooms. All original architectural details in them, including the floors and windows, banisters and trim, have been carefully restored. Previous owners had walled in the porte cochere that the current family also knocked out and returned to the beauty of its original state. The back areas of the home (kitchen, family room, mud room) were added at some point, but totally gutted and re-imagined by the Fabers to provide a spacious family living area.
Anne is a gifted home designer and made all aesthetic choices herself. She hales from Birmingham, Alabama, where she and her mother found the crystal chandelier (hanging over the dining table) in an antique store. She also sourced her timeless brass kitchen hardware from a hardware store in Birmingham, and she has art on the walls from her hometown as well. The show-stopping stove is from La Cornue, and the elegant countertops are honed marble. Anne’s approach to putting together a room is this: something old, something new, and something leafy and green.
The family hosts a Christmas party every year with close friends and family. They set up two Christmas trees—one in the living room for the neighbors to get a glimpse of, and another in the back of the house that they fill with the children’s homemade ornaments and family decorations. They put extra tables in the middle room, next to the dining room, to make plenty of room for everyone.