The Lassister House SE7th Street, Gainesville, Fla - Victorian Style Architecture on Waymarking.com

The Lassiter House was constructed on this site in 1885 by Wilburn Lassiter and his second wife, Fanny. The Southeast Historic District was the earliest "suburb" of Gainesville, lying just outside the town limits which, at the time, stopped at the Sweetwater Branch. This house and the neighboring Baird mansion were built on five acre parcels which dominated the block.

The Lassiter family sold the house to William Reuben Thomas in 1920. He converted it into two apartments, one on each floor, and made substantial modifications. The house was electrified (it was already plumbed for coal gas lighting fixtures), the stair railing and baluster were removed to create a hallway from the porch to the second floor apartment and primitive plumbing was installed. This change made it impossible to travel from the first floor to the second without going outside the house. The kitchen was eliminated in favor of creating an additional bedroom.

The most dramatic exterior modification was the addition of a Craftsman style two-story sleeping porch on the southwest corner of the house. This new feature changed the massing of the house and hid the elaborate three-sided bay and the unique mansard on the third floor.

In 1938, the house was again divided, this time into four apartments. Four small (very!) kitchens and baths were added and the property began its life as a four unit apartment building.

Its condition began to deteriorate through the fifties and sixties. This area was known as "Hippie Hill" and Gainesville was known as the "Berkely of the Southeast". Rumor has it that a certain Tom Petty was a tenant in the late sixties when his formative band, Mudcrutch, was the local rage. The house was actually condemned in 1979, but somehow survived until the early nineties when it was purchased by Butch and Joyce Redstone. The Redstones planned to convert the property into a Bed and Breakfast Inn and did major renovations which stabilized the condition of the house.

Monta and Peggy Burt bought the house in April of 1999 and began a two year odyssey to restore it to its former floor plan and ambience.

Public/Private: Public/Bed&Breakfest Year Built: 1885 Web Address: [Web Link] Tours Available?: Not listed

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