A South Tampa home with ties to a couple historic local bigwigs is now for sale in the Virginia Park neighborhood.
Located at 3902 W Bay To Bay Blvd., the home was built sometime between 1925 and 1926 by Tampa developer William McNevin, says Tampa History Center Director Rodney Kite-Powell in an email to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. "McNevin was part of the second group that developed Virginia Park in the 1920s," says Kite-Powell, who points out that Bay to Bay was actually called Covadonga at the time. "It is an original Palma Ceia subdivision street, and those street names all come from Old Havana," points out Kite-Powell. "When Virginia Park was platted they continued most of the east-west streets and kept the names. For some reason they changed Covadonga to Bay to Bay."
Besides McNevin, property records show another notable owner of this home was civic leader and activist Charles M. Davis, who is the current namesake for the Charles M. Davis Special Events Center at the Florida Fairgrounds. Davis, who died in 1998, has an extensive list of significant local accomplishments. According to his obituary in the Tampa Tribune (purchased and shut down by the Tampa Bay Times in 2016), Davis helped Tampa General Hospital pull itself from near bankruptcy in the 1970s, he was the was also the president of the Tampa YMCA, and he's credited with helping plan the Tampa International Airport.
A real estate ad from 1998, provided by listing agent Gregory Szewczyk of Smith & Associates, boasts that the home was also owned by a roster of impressive folks, including an ambassador to Nicaragua, the guy who built the "Chunnel" between France and England, and a Tampa cigar tycoon. However, CL was unable to verify these claims.
"I don't think that the house was built by a cigar manufacturer," says Kite-Powell. "I think whoever wrote that history was confusing this house with two others—one at the northwest corner of Dale Mabry and Bay to Bay (which may be somewhere underneath the Smith & Associates office building that is there now) and a house at Grady (I think) and Bay to Bay."
Regardless, the home still has some impressive history and now it's on the market. The 3,835 square-foot Mediterranean house sits on a near quarter acre lot and comes with three-bedrooms, and three bathrooms, as well as hardwood flooring, multiple fireplaces, and a Roman pool.
The current asking price is $779,900, and the listing agents are Gregory Szewczyk and Anne Mullis of Smith & Associates.
Photos courtesy of Smith & Associates
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