Page 15 of Ten Beach Road

He looked at them as if this should mean something. Madeline smiled, but she didn’t think any of them really cared who had built it or lived in it. They just wanted to know how much money they could get for it.

“The Prices were related to Henry Plant, who built Plant Hall and is credited with bringing the railroad down as far as Tampa. A very prominent family. The house remained in the Price family for over sixty years. In 1978 a distant relative named Sam Paulding inherited it and spent a great deal of time and money on it. That work stopped when Sam Paulding died unexpectedly in 1990. It’s changed hands a number of times since then.”

Nicole looked pointedly down at her watch. When the Realtor paused briefly to take a breath, she asked, “Do you think we could go ahead and take a look?”

Madeline winced at the impatience that underscored her tone.

“Why, of course. Of course.”

They moved through the opening in the low wall and followed the path through a veritable forest of palm trees and overgrown shrubbery. The courtyard felt overcrowded and out of control, as if man had simply given up and allowed nature to have its way. “Anyone happen to have a machete in their purse?” Nicole asked, pushing a low lying palm frond out of her face.

Avery smiled. “It is a bit overgrown, but I bet it was gorgeous back in the day.”

“Oh, yes,” Franklin said. “Most of the garden is original to the house. There are plants here that were put in when the house was built and are still thriving.”

“Taking over the world is more like it,” Nicole muttered as Madeline did the math. Apparently the house, like John Franklin and much of the local population, was over eighty years old.

“It just needs a little attention,” he continued. “Maybe a little pruning. My wife is president of the garden club and she says . . .”

Nicole sighed as the Realtor nattered on, but this time she didn’t interrupt.

“And look at this fountain,” he continued as they pushed their way through a stand of big leafed plants and stepped around a group of pointy-edged cactus-like things. It was a weathered concrete basin shaped like an upside down urn. A frieze of dolphins had been carved into its sides.

“It’s beautiful,” Madeline said.

“It’s classic Art Deco,” Avery added enthusiastically, but all of them were already looking over the top of the fountain to the house itself. Madeline’s pulse skittered in her veins as she considered it.

The brick walkway opened to a series of steps, which led to a wooden double door framed in a rectangle of carved stone. Two-storied wings fanned outward on each side, stretching almost the width of the property before folding backward in an inverted U. The pink stucco was faded and splotchy like an old woman who’d had an ill-advised love affair with the sun but had nonetheless moisturized faithfully. The first floor was lined with full-length arched windows; those upstairs were square or rectangular and framed by stone and wrought-iron balconies. The tile roof angled and straightened in numerous directions. Above the roof line two chimneys and a bell tower rose up toward the sky.

“This is a great example of Mediterranean Revival architecture,” Avery said. “The style was hugely popular in Florida and California in the twenties and early thirties. I actually did my thesis on the style’s greatest architects in college.”

Franklin smiled his approval. “Yes, it was a style that was not only elegant but functional for the climate and the times. The walls are a foot thick and the profusion of windows and balconies provide cross ventilation, which was critical in those days before air-conditioning. And inside those foot-thick walls is hollow tile construction reinforced with steel. It was built to last, and it has.”

Madeline knew John Franklin was giving them a sales pitch, but nonetheless her excitement continued to build. For the last three months she’d been clinging by her fingertips, praying for a miracle; now it looked like at least some of her prayers had been answered.

She and Avery and Nicole crowded around John Franklin, the anticipation written on all of their faces as they walked up the steps.It’s a mansion,she reminded herself as Franklin fit the key into the front lock and jiggled it to engage the old brass lock.With a brick drive and a walled courtyard and a name.

The heavy door creaked open and he stepped back with a courtly bow to allow them to enter. “There we go,” he said.

Madeline felt an embarrassing urge to close her eyes and hold her breath as the three of them stepped over the threshold together. She managed to resist the first but apparently none of them did that well with the second. Because they’d hardly set foot in the foyer when there was a loud whoosh of released breath. Which was, unfortunately, accompanied by what sounded like the frantic flapping of wings.

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