Gregory Fancelli, 47, pulled open the doors to the kitchen of the old Zohra’s restaurant overlooking Lake Wire and found stainless steel equipment, a few pieces of errant china and an old wine menu.
All of it now belongs to him.
Fancelli, a devout historic preservationist, bought the property last month in order to save the 1925 red brick structure from the wrecking ball and the land from being developed into a 32-unit apartment building and clubhouse. The sale is so new, it is not on the property appraiser’s website yet.
“I remember I had dinner here,” Fancelli recalled as he walked from room to room in what used to be Zohra’s, which served its last meal in 2011. “It was nice — I was sorry to see it close.”
Fancelli is the grandson of Publix founder George Jenkins and has a passion to save and remodel old buildings. He is most notable as a preservationist for moving the 1927 section of the old Gene Holloway Tudor home about a mile to South Florida Avenue, where it is now Cob & Pen, a popular watering hole. He also moved a bungalow home to Lime Street, where it awaits renovation.
The purchase effectively scuttles plans for the Lake Wire Apartments, which would have replaced it.
A home with history
Standing in the West Peachtree Street building’s back yard, he can hear the traffic from the in-town bypass that bears his grandfather’s name.
The home is known as the Emory Bryant house, built by one of Lakeland’s pioneer families.
Its design is attributed to noted Georgia architect Edward Columbus Hosford, who also designed numerous historic county courthouses throughout Florida, Georgia and Texas, including the historic Polk County Courthouse in Bartow. His other designs in Lakeland include:
- An office building at 106-114 E. Main Street
- The Oates Building at 230 S. Florida Ave.
- And Lawton Chiles Middles Academy at 400 S. Florida Ave., which was Lakeland High School when it was built in about 1927.
Lakeland Business Institute
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Emory Bryant home housed the Lakeland Business Institute.
The now-defunct school offered vocational courses in typing, shorthand, accounting and secretarial skills. It advertised “air-cooled buildings” on Lake Wire where students could create a “happy and prosperous future” and earn enough money to pay their way through college.
Larry Jackson, the first Black lawyer to establish a general practice in Lakeland and for whom the city’s branch library is named, also lived in the home with his family. His daughters thanked Fancelli on Facebook on Tuesday.
“This is wonderful news and warms my heart,” said Lillian Jackson Tinsley. “I had many wonderful years and precious memories when that house was my home. God is amazing!!! Thank you Mr. Gregory Fancelli and Mayor Bill Mutz.”
Her sister Lele Jackson agreed.
“Oh wow! This is wonderful,” she said. “He not only preserved history, but also a part of our childhood.”
Zohra’s restaurant
In May 2002, the property was rezoned from low-impact office to pedestrian commercial to allow for the conversion of the former single-family home into Zohra’s, which operated from 2006 until January 2011. The building has been vacant since the restaurant closed that year.
The Property Appraiser’s website shows the building was sold in 2021 to Jason Lewis for $650,000.
Last year, City Commissioners voted 5-2 to change the zoning of 401 W. Peachtree St. from commercial to multifamily residential, clearing the way for a planned 32-unit project on the site.
Commissioner Stephanie Madden launched a last-minute bid to delay the vote, in hope of finding a way to save a red brick home-turned-restaurant.
Madden and Commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley voted against changing the zoning. Madden wanted to table the vote until something could be done for the home. McCarley was concerned about the home and what an apartment building would contribute to the already clogged traffic during school drop-off and pick-up for Lawton Chiles Middle Academy.
Fancelli said the rezoning last year caught him off guard and he had been speaking with Lewis since that April vote to see if they could trade properties so he could save the house. Fancelli also owns vacant land on Massachusetts Avenue just north of the Lakeland Police Station. But Lewis found another larger property that would better suit his need to construct a larger apartment building and he asked Fancelli in November if he wanted to buy 401 Peachtree Street West.
Saving a relic
As he wandered in one of the four bedrooms upstairs, evidence of termites could be seen, with wooden powder on the floor by a closet door. There is also mold in some spots and a crumbling stairwell ceiling. He knows he has his work cut out for him.
“I just factor that in for every house in Florida,” he said.
Fancelli said his plans for the vacant lot north of the police station might include a condominium building. He has spoken in the past of recreating Lakeland’s iconic Hotel Thelma, once a winter hotspot for northerners. It was torn down in the 1960s. It sat on the northeast corner of Kentucky Avenue and Lemon Street and stretched for half a block north. The same family, the Carters, also owned the Palace Theater, where Palace Pizza now sits.
He also owns the Donovan Dean-designed church along that same stretch of Massachusetts Avenue. Plans to turn it into a bar were foiled when several conservative residents objected to what they felt was sacrilegious. It remains empty for now as Fancelli plans in his minds’ eye.
Next door to the old Zohra’s was the defunct Lake Wire Retirement Center at 321 W. Peachtree St. It was demolished by owner Greg Wilkerson to make way for the planned “Peachtree Flats” – an 84-unit market-rate complex with a two-tier parking structure.
Work on the neighboring property is stalled as Wilkerson awaits federal financing. He has already received $775,000 from the city for infrastructure improvements, including:
- Three-phase primary power extension from southwest corner of George
Jenkins Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the subject
property - Underground stormwater detention
- Street lighting
- Sidewalk and crosswalk upgrades
- Street-side landscaping and irrigation
The funding also helped to pay for demolition of the former Lake Wire Retirement Center, which has asbestos in the facade and will require extensive remediation.
Fancelli is hoping that Wilkerson might relent and sell him the property. He was sad, he said, to see the retirement center buildings torn down because he had hoped to get ahold of the property to renovate the buildings and turn them into apartments, as he has done to multiple homes, duplexes and apartment buildings in several historic districts in Lakeland. Now, he said, if Wilkerson would sell, he could recreate the Florida bungalows that once stood along Lake Wire — something with character and charm.
He laments the quality of apartment buildings going up around town.
“It might be nice at first, but then it starts to deteriorate because it’s made of cardboard and tin foil,” he said.
Fancelli stood on the flat portion of the roof, looking out over Lake Wire. His childlike excitement shined as he spotted the top of The Terrace Hotel peering back at him between palm trees.
“We need to make it a historic home so we don’t have this problem 100 years from now,” Fancelli said.
latest news
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
This is wonderful of him to purchase this building! I used to eat at Zohra’s quite often and even had a fundraiser luncheon and fashion show there. Congrats Greg for saving some of Lakeland history again. Cob & Pen was a great save also!
Thanks for saving this home in our neighborhood.
Thank you Greg Fancelli for saving another old house in Lakeland I hope you keep on going with more places