Tampa's oldest house for sale

The newspaper photograph of Tampa's oldest house, then well past its 100th year, captured his imagination.

"I begged my mother to drive me by to see it," said Jim Singleton. In the late 1960s he was a 12-year-old history buff, living in South Tampa. He wanted to grow up and live in the house at 3210 E. Eighth Ave.

It was a simple Cracker-style clapboard house with a front porch sheltered by a short sloped roof. To Singleton the house held the wonder of history.

City historians say the house might have been built as early as 1842. Maps suggest it was part of a frontier settlement at least as early as 1853.

At 150-plus years of age, the house today sits in disrepair, covered in pale yellow vinyl-siding and with an asking price of about $38,000 -- including more than $13,000 in unpaid taxes. Until two years ago it was a rooming house for otherwise homeless men. Its owner, the late James Felton, lived thousands of miles away in Thailand.

He had a passion for helping the downtrodden. When he died more than four years ago the house passed to current owner Ronald Mack.

"I would like to sell it to someone who is planning to restore it," said Mack. "There's a lot of history."

On a journey through time and geography, the house was uprooted and set down again in the former town of Gary, an agrarian community east of Ybor City.

Historians have known about the house for some time.

"Those old buildings for the most part are very well built," said Rodney Kite Powell, curator at the Tampa History Center. City maps from 1853 show a building that is the right shape and design for the Eighth Avenue house. "That's pretty cool," he said.

A setting such as Cracker Country at the Florida Fairgrounds could be a suitable home but a second relocation would be more difficult than the one accomplished in 1914, Kite Powell said. "The problem is it really is stuck where it is as far as moving it any distance," he said. "It's still out of its context."

It was originally built on a patch of land near Fort Brooke, when foot traffic beat down pathways among a scattered village of buildings that etched out the future city of Tampa. Historians say its original owner was a physician, Sheldon Stringer. His grandson, by the same name, also lived in the house and practiced medicine from a back room.

Mack says he believes it once might have been slave quarters though historical records make no mention of that.

In 1914 city officials decided to build a city hall where the Stringer house stood, on what is now Jackson Street.

Imboden Stalnaker bought the house, had it disassembled and shipped it about two miles by train to Gary. His son, Leo Stalnaker Sr., grew up in the house and became a municipal judge and a state representative in 1927. He later built a bungalow three blocks away where his son, Leo Stalnaker Jr. grew up, and where Singleton lives today.

The junior Stalnaker was an assistant managing editor of The Tampa Tribune.

As close as Singleton is to his dream house, he can't afford the selling price or the cost of repairs. He hopes the right buyer who shares his love of history steps forward.

I've got to be concerned about it being bull-dozed," Singleton said. "The ideal would be if the city of Tampa bought it."

That was tried in 2001 by then Mayor Dick Greco, and failed.

News of the house's significance was enough to bring Felton from Thailand to Tampa. But he only would deed the property to the city if a suitable replacement building was found for the homeless men living in the house.

Nothing happened. The house is not protected as a historical landmark. But for whoever buys the house, demolition would not be automatic. The city requires an application and public review before allowing the tear-down of structures 50 years old or older.

One deal that held promise for the house's restoration almost came through, said real estate agent Willie Dudley. He and Mack are hoping for more offers.

Area preservation groups say they have limited resources.

"I guess there is always an outside chance someone will step forward," said Becky Clarke, executive director of Tampa Preservation Inc. "It's hard."