Some of the fun of the whole “Florida man” meme was deflated when it became clear that the phenomenon arose because Florida’s unexpectedly strong open government laws make it easy to access arrest reports, which, in turn, make it easy to ridicule people long before they’ve been found guilty (or not) in court.
But even so, there’s definitely something… different about America’s third most populous state. And while it’s true that those of us in the staid old sensible north dream occasionally of sawing off the entire peninsula, Bugs Bunny-style, and setting it adrift in the Gulf of Mexico America, we also realize that if we did so, we’d be depriving ourselves of the sorts of stories you just don’t find anywhere else.
Take, for example, the Tampa house that has apparently become known simply as “Florida Man’s Home”, which is currently on the market for the first time in decades. The property earned its name due to its, um, flamboyant décor, which includes a “pirate’s cave”, a room both themed around and quite literally built around a 1950s hot rod, a “Jaws tribute” in the backyard, and a whole bunch of taxidermy. (It’s a shame that Kate Wagner of the immortal McMansion Hell blog has been unwell of late, because this place is just begging to be given the full “What is this???” treatment.)
Several local outlets have spoken to the house’s owner, Jenna Spencer, since it went on the market for, um, $420,000, and she explained to Fox 13 Tampa that her home’s unique approach to decoration is the legacy of her late father. She says that the original catalyst for transforming what was apparently a pretty normal house into a the residential equivalent of a theme park was, inevitably, a trip to Disney World: “That [trip],” she says, “inspired the haunted pirate’s cave,” which her father built in a hallway that had been damaged by a tree falling during one of Florida’s summer storms.
For better or worse, the rest was architectural history. And look, for as easy as it is to cackle at the insanity of the house, it must have been a pretty amazing place to grow up (check out that sound system). Spencer gets emotional when she discusses how once the renovations started, “my friends started wanting to come over to my house more often.” Sadly, she says, the financial burden of maintaining the place became too much after both her parents died in 2023. But in a thoroughly modern twist, it looks like Florida Man’s Home will be spared the bulldozer: the house is already under offer, and the prospective buyers are reportedly planning to turn it into an Airbnb.
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