Viewing Profile: Bob Horn

• About Bob Horn
  I am a Florida State licensed Realtor whose primary focus is on assisting clients with the purchase or sale of residential properties. With a strong background in the Information Technology field, an MBA degree with a specialized focus in IT and Management, and a lifetime of experience with and exposure to all of the many and varied areas of St. Petersburg, I believe that I am in an excellent position to provide people with the guidance, experience, and knowledge that they seek in today’s market environment when considering selling or purchasing a home in this area. Prior to the start of my career in Real Estate, I spent ten years at Raymond James and Associates, where I supervised a Software Development team in the IT Department. Our focus was on supplying design and programming expertise to the Raymond James Accounting and Internal Audit departments. During my tenure at RJ, I attended USF’s College of Business part time, where I earned an MBA with specializations/focus in IT and Management. Before joining Raymond James and Associates, I owned, operated and managed a small business, Sunrise Electronics, for over fifteen years in St Petersburg. My company performed maintenance and repairs on consumer home entertainment electronics and on personal computers.
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  Latest Posts by Bob Horn

• Free Museum Day Coming Soon!

  Written by Bob Horn No Comments
  Last Updated: September 17, 2010

  On Saturday, September 25th, St. Petersburg’s major museums will throw open their doors and welcome everyone in, free of charge!  This is an annual event, done in coordination with the Smithsonian Institute and Smithsonian Magazine. The event is taking place in many major cities around the country, so if you’re not near St. Petersburg, check your local media for details in your area.  But for St. Petersburg, I can tell you that you will be welcomed, at no cost, at The Dali Museum, Dr. Carter G. Woodson Museum, Florida Holocaust Museum, Great Explorations Children’s Museum, Morean Arts Center and Hot Shop, Museum of Fine Arts, Pier Aquarium, and the St. Petersburg Museum of History.  For more details, such as addresses, museum hours, etc,  you can check out this link  on the City of St. Petersburg’s website.

  

• Go For Baroque at Museum of Fine Arts in St. Pete

  Written by Bob Horn No Comments
  Last Updated: March 4, 2010

   The Baroque World of Fernando Botero is the current featured exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown St. Petersburg.  The exhibition runs from January 9th through April 4th, and it includes 100 paintings, sculptures, and drawings from Botero’s private collection.  Many of the works have not been exhibited publicly before.  In addition to all of the work on exhibit inside the museum, there are two extraordinary pieces that have been strategically placed on the front and rear lawns of the museum.

  Botero, a world-renowned Colombian born painter and sculptor, is known for creating works of art that are united by their proportionally exaggerated, or “fat” figures, as he once referred to them.  Botero graduated from Medellin University in Colombia in 1950, and in following years, studied in Madrid, Florence, New York, and Paris, where he moved in 1973 and where he lives today.

  As one can see from the two sculptures that are in temporary residence outside the museum, Botero appears to have fun with his craft, and this theme can be seen throughout much of his work.  If you’d like to get a little of the ‘flavor’ of Botero’s work, you can check out this link at Google Images.  And if you’d like to see either of the images below in its full-screen splendor, just click on the photo.

  For information about the Museum of Fine Arts, including location, direction, hours of operation, and more, check out their website.

  

   

• Progress on the New Dali Museum

  Written by Bob Horn No Comments
  Last Updated: February 24, 2010

  If you’ve never paid a visit to the Dali Museum, you really should! It’s a fantastic land of the surreal, and walking through the museum and really taking time to absorb what you see there can create entirely new neural pathways in your brain! Dali’s works are amazing, over the top explosions of color and shape and reality gone wild, and they are nothing but fun to see. Fans who live in the area or who visit here are very lucky – the St. Petersburg Dali museum holds the largest collection of Dali works in the United States and the largest collection outside of Europe.

  For anyone who does not know Salvador Dali’s works, you can get a pretty good idea of what they’re about by checking out this Google Images site.  And for those that do know Dali’s work, but are not familiar with all of the great things about the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, you should check out the Museum’s web site.  It’s worth looking at – aside from information about the exhibitions at the Museum, you can also learn about special events like the Saturday Family Fun Day and the S’Real Friday Happy Hour, with live music and half price admissions after 5:30 PM.  Think about it – go to Happy Hour, have a couple of drinks, then walk around and take a look at some of the most mind-bending depictions of non-reality imaginable.  Guaranteed to make your Happy Hour even happier.  And, while you’re at it, you might make a new connection with someone else who’s attending – it’s a popular Friday evening event!

  The current Salvador Dali Museum is located at 1000 3rd Street South, just to the south of the University of South Florida’s Bayboro campus.  For now. 

  And that leads us to the photograph below (please click on the photo to see a higher resolution, full size image), and the really exciting news that I’m posting about.  The Dali Museum will be moving, probably in 2011, if all goes according to plan.  The new Dali home will be a 35 million dollar, 66,450 square foot structure – that’s twice the size of the existing museum!  Included in the layout will be 50% more gallery space than the current museum has, which means that there will be a lot more of Dali’s work on display at any given time.  The museum will feature a huge, futuristic looking glass geodesic structure, giving it a unique look and feel that should provide incredible visual impact in its setting on the waterfront and adjacent to the Mahaffey Theater.

  I’ve been watching the progress on the new building since early last summer.  For a long time, it looked just like any new building, with foundation, walls, etc.  But in recent weeks, there has been, as the museum folks might say, surreal progress! The shell of the new structure is complete, and the very Dali-esque glass sculptures that will define the look and feel of the museum, both inside and out, are morphing towards completion. It’s both a bizarre and a beautiful look, and I have to believe that Dali himself would have smiled upon this new museum.

  If you’d like more information about the new Dali, follow this link to an FAQ page.

  And if you’d like to drive by to take a look for yourself, just head downtown on First Avenue South until you reach the last north/south road, which runs along the edge of the bay, which is BayShore Drive. Take BayShore towards the south, and after you pass the marina and Al Lang Field, you’ll see the Mahaffey Theatre. Right after the Mahaffey is the new Dali. You can’t miss it!

   

• A Tank With a View

  Written by Bob Horn No Comments
  Last Updated: January 12, 2010

  What could be more utilitarian than a water storage tower?  I guess, in many places, there’s probably not much that’s more utilitarian.  But anyone in the northeast area of  St. Petersburg who ever turns on their water is getting it from this very decidedly non-utilitarian looking storage tower!  Much more fun than the standard gray tank that you see so often.  And just another example of how St. Petersburg does a great job of making ordinary things extraordinary… (Please click on the picture to see a full-sized image)

  

• Open Air Post Office in St. Petersburg

  Written by Bob Horn No Comments
  Last Updated: December 2, 2009

  

  St. Petersburg has a very unique and beautiful post office in the heart of downtown.  It’s known as the Open Air Post Office because, as you can see in this late 1940′s or early 1950′s era postcard, the main areas of the post office are not enclosed.  If you were to walk through the arches that you see, you’d be in the area of hundreds of post office boxes, as well as mail drops.  Our Open Air Post Office is located at the southwest corner of Fourth Street North and First Avenue north, diagonally across the street from Williams Park.

  This post office was completed and opened for business in September of 1917, so we are just a few years away from its centennial celebration!  And, interestingly enough, this was not the first open air post office in St. Petersburg.  Prior to the opening of this facility, there was a much smaller open air post office a block away.  That one was built in 1907, on the northeast corner of Central Avenue and Fourth Street.  But our growing city quickly outgrew that building, and in 1915, the post office had to move temporarily to the first floor of the City Hall of that day, located on Fourth Street South.  That same year, a congressional appropriation of $102,000 was granted for the construction of a new, large, full service post office that would be able to serve the needs of the city for years to come.

  Although initial plans drawn up for the post office involved a building built several feet above street level, with lots of steps leading up to it, our local Postmaster didn’t like those plans, and he worked to design a building at street level, with no steps, and one that was open on all sides and would allow postal patrons to have access to their post office boxes 24 hours a day.  The result of his plans is history – a gorgeous Mediterranean Revival building with rich architectural detail and a grand feel to it.  And, perhaps more importantly, a structure that has stood the test of time – this building is still operating as an active post office today.  In 1975, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

  To provide a little comparison, I scanned an old post card of the Open Air Post Office and that’s the picture that you see above.  Then, a few weeks ago, I took my own photos of the building, and those are the shots that you see below.  The photos are a bit compressed in this blog format, so for a much better view, please click on each picture to see a full sized image.  As you can see, the post office looks pretty much the same today as it did in long-ago St. Petersburg!  And you might also notice the Snell Arcade/Rutland building – the tall structure just behind the post office – it also stands proud today, as beautiful as ever.  This post office is worth a first hand look, so if you have a few minutes sometime and are near downtown St. Petersburg, park your car and walk through it and enjoy feeling a bit of history around you.  This is one of those cases where you really can say, “They don’t make ‘em like this any more… 

  

   

  

• O Wave in Downtown St. Petersburg

  Written by Bob Horn No Comments
  Last Updated: November 6, 2009

  

  I love public art!  I can be out in the world, just moving along through life, and I might be anywhere at all, and suddenly I come upon something that was placed there, just for me to look at, to study, to question, to enjoy, or maybe to laugh at.  Okay, maybe it wasn’t placed there just for me.  You can look at it, too.  But the point is that it’s there for all to see and to take in, if you like, or to ignore if you so choose.  

  St. Petersburg has a LOT of public art installations scattered around the city and I still discover new ones every now and then.  This post is about a new public art installation that was installed a couple of months ago in downtown St. Petersburg.  I realize that this is a subjective opinion, but it’s my post so I get to state my opinion: The sculpture is absolutely stunning!

  This sculpture is called “O Wave”.  Not “O-Wave”, as I’ve seen in some places, but just “O Wave”.  It was created by artist/sculptor Gordon Huether, and it was commissioned by JMC Communities, the developers of the new luxury condominium, Ovation, in downtown St. Petersburg.  The sculpture is a sixteen foot tall curving arc made of stainless steel and dichroic glass.  The glass reflects and refracts and generally plays with the light, and it changes according to the angle that you view it from. 

  The artist, in a recent statement about the new sculpture, said, “With curves that evoke nearby waters and Ovation’s own undulating lines, glass that simultaneously transmits and reflects light, and reflective surfaces that capture ambient activity of nearby trees, sky and passersby, the fixed sculpture takes on a distinct animated character, creating a passively kinetic sculpture.”

  I am posting two photos, just to give a little feel of the different look that it takes on.  Please click on the photos to bring up a full-size version for a better look.  But for the best look, head downtown and see this beautiful work for yourself!  You’ll find it on Beach Drive, at the corner of Second Avenue North.  

  

• Get Your Free Culture This Saturday!

  Written by Bob Horn No Comments
  Last Updated: September 24, 2009

  

  I realize that today is only Thursday, but I wanted to publish this post now so that you all know about it in time to build it into your Saturday schedule. The annual ArtsAlive Free Museum day will happen this Saturday, September 26th, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Completely Free admission to all of these museums! Choose your favorites, or maybe choose one or two that you’ve never been to before, then grab your kids or your sweetheart or both and go out and get some culture!

  Participating St. Petersburg museums, in alphabetical order, are:

  Dr. Carter G. Woodson Museum @ 2240 9th Avenue South 727.323.1104
  Florida Holocaust Museum @ 55 5th Street South 727.820.0100
  Florida International Museum @ 244 2nd Avenue North 727.341-7900
  Great Explorations Children’s Museum @ 1925 4th Street North 727.821.8992
  Morean Arts Center @ 719 Central Avenue 727.822.7872
  Museum of Fine Arts @ 255 Beach Drive NE 727.896.2667
  Pier Aquarium @ 800 2nd Avenue NE 727.895.7437
  Salvador Dali Museum @ 1000 3rd Street South 727.823.3767
  St. Petersburg Museum of History @ 335 2nd Avenue NE 727.894.1052

• First Friday in St. Petersburg

  Written by Bob Horn No Comments
  Last Updated: August 21, 2009

  I am telling you the absolute truth when I say this:  When I was a kid, downtown St. Petersburg was dead at night.  Not just slow.  Empty.

  When I hit 16 and got my little used Karman Ghia convertible, I did not drive downtown at night, except during Christmas season.  For a couple of weeks in mid December, stores were open at night and there were actually people there.  But, the rest of the year, downtown was still empty.

  

  Street Scene at First Friday

  A few years later, I rented a big old seven bedroom house on the corner of 4th Street South and 6th Avenue South, and shared the house with several other high income folks such as myself.  Yes, it’s true, I lived on Chicken Pot Pies for a time there.  Anyway, my cheap entertainment was my bicycle, and I loved to ride down by the water, over into Roser Park, and north into downtown.  But I had downtown to myself – streets, sidewalks, everything.  Empty and desolate.

  Not so in 2009!  There are always things going on downtown.  Great restaurants, concerts of every imaginable genre and for all ages, live theater, and more.  And on the first Friday of each month, the city closes off part of Central Avenue and downtown hosts the First Friday Get Downtown Street Party!  It starts before dark and runs ’til 2 AM.  Although it was raining early on Friday night, August 7th, and I wondered if it would even happen, the rains quit by about 7:30 and it was actually pretty cool out for a hot August night.  My wife and I drove downtown, parked in front of Starbucks, and walked a block to the party.  There were certainly fewer people attending than usual, likely because it had been raining.  But, still, they numbered in the hundreds, and everyone seemed to be having fun.

  As we approached the stage set up in the middle of Central Avenue, we heard some Santana riffs drifting through the air. As we got closer, the music sounded better and better. It was coming from Suzette Jennings and the Moodswingz, a local band with a wide-ranging repertoire. They covered contemporary jazz, some soul, some R&B, and even a very nice rendition of  “Ode to Billie Joe”.  Plenty of people focused intently on the band, including lots of folks who had brought chairs with them and set them up in front of the stage. It’s worth mentioning that this was a crowd of all ages, from Gen Y/Millennials to Gen Xers to Boomers, and everybody was having a great time. We saw friends running into one another, couples dancing, women dressed to kill, maybe hoping for something fun to happen, guys dressed as guys dress, maybe hoping for a miracle…

  

  Suzette Jennings and Moodswingz

  There were several bars and restaurants open in the area, but there’s also beer and wine sold on the street, with profits going to local charities. You can do a little drinking and feel good about it, too! So, next time it’s the first Friday night of the month and you’re wondering how you’re going to spend your evening, why not Get Downtown and hit the First Friday party? It’s a fun diversion and a nice change from everyday routine.

• St. Pete Saturday Morning Summer Market

  Written by Bob Horn No Comments
  Last Updated: August 7, 2009

  When the Saturday Morning Market first opened in November of 2002, it was a great feeling for those who have lived in St. Petersburg for a long time.  We’ve seen lots of other cities and towns with Saturday Morning Markets, and we’d had a few that tried to get going here in St. Petersburg, but this one felt different, somehow.  I love it when the fall weather arrives – humidity goes away, cooler temperatures sneak in, and you can go hang out downtown at the Market and run into friends, hear good music, buy wonderful fresh produce, handcrafted items, plants, and, especially, wonderful, sumptious food!  It’s just such a treat!

  

  One of the Plant Booths at the Market

  But, alas, every year, as spring comes to an end and the summer sun gets hotter, the market has shut down, gone into a summer hibernation until Fall. But this year, for the first time, somebody got a little bit creative and all of the powers that be were flexible and there’s a whole new thing going on – the Saturday Summer Market! It’s moved just a couple of blocks away from it’s normal home – the summer version is being held in the Mahaffey Theater parking garage.

  

  Colorful Handmade Hats

  If that sounds dismal, believe me, it’s not.  This garage has very high ceilings, so there’s no sense of being closed in.  It’s fully open on the sides and at each end, so there’s plenty of light and, a couple of Saturdays ago, when my wife and I went down there, the breeze was beautiful – we walked around for an hour and a half and did not even get a bit warm.  Also, since the whole thing is undercover and shielded from the sun, I did not have to apply one speck of suncreen, which makes me very happy.

  There are still lots of vendors, great food and beverages, handcrafted soaps and candles and craftwork, plenty of fresh, delicious produce, great barbeque, lots of varieties of other foods for breakfast or lunch, desserts, music, and everything else you’d hope for in a morning market.  Parking is plentiful and just a one minute walk away, and it only costs a buck, so no need to bring quarters for meters or for watching the time.

  If you haven’t been down to check it out, you ought to – it’s a nice way to spend Saturday morning – and a great way to go home with some very nicely priced treasures!

  

  The Spirit of the Market - Hand-Chalked 'Thank You' Sign

• St. Petersburg’s Hometown Airport

  Written by Bob Horn No Comments
  Last Updated: July 31, 2009

  When I was a kid, sometimes my dad would need to drive someone over to the Tampa airport or pick someone up from the airport. Whenever I could, I tried to go along for the ride. In those days, there were no security gates, no TSA personnel, and nothing to stop anyone from walking out to the terminal buildings and sitting and watching the planes take off and land. I loved it as a kid, and it honestly continued as I got older. I remember when I got my first car, a little Karman Ghia convertible, occasionally driving over to TIA with my girlfriend and walking out to the terminal building to watch the planes come and go at night. It was just something I enjoyed doing, and I don’t think I was alone.

  

  View From the Terminal (Click for larger photo)

  Alas, in 2009, such simple pleasures are not so easily attainable. I can (and do) still drive over to TIA, but unless I’m getting on the plane myself or I’m accompanying someone who is very very young or very very old, I am not going to get past the guards to board the tram and I’m not going to watch the planes take off or land. But there are alternatives, and one of them is right here in St. Petersburg. Most people are aware that we have a small, local, city-owned airport, Albert Whitted, located just a few blocks south of downtown and fronting right onto Tampa Bay. The airport is about 110 acres in size, and, according to the City of St. Petersburg web site, it handles 80,000 general aviation aircraft operations each year. It is also home base to approximately 185 aircraft. Throughout the day, anyone driving, riding or walking nearby can easily spot planes as they glide into the airport to land or as they taxi out on the runway to take off. Sometimes, especially if you happen to be an early riser and hang out in the area at sunrise, it can be an especially beautiful sight, watching a plane take off over the bay as the sun begins to creep up into the sky from the other side of the bay. Until recently, to enjoy these sights, you pretty much had to find a bench somewhere in the area surrounding the airport.

  Then, a couple of years ago, an airport improvement package was approved, and it included funding for the construction of a new 10,600 square foot terminal building at the airport. The building was completed in the Fall of 2007 and has been in operation since then. It’s a two story structure – the bottom floor is currently home to an Avis car rental facility, Bay Air Charter Company, and to St. Pete Flying Service. The second story is currently empty space, but it was designed to house a restaurant and lounge type of business. Initial plans for an Arigato restaurant fell through, but the city recently disclosed that it is negotiating with Steve Westphal, the owner of Beach Drive’s popular Parkshore Grill. If plans come to fruition, Westphal plans to open the Hangar Restaurant and Flight Lounge, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner in an ‘affordable’ price range.

  

  Albert Whitted Terminal Building (Click for larger photo)

  But, back to the idea of watching the planes come and go — outside of the restaurant space upstairs, there’s an area that’s covered from the rain and sun, but one that has a perfect, open view of the runways and the bay. This area seems as though it will likely accommodate outdoor seating when a restaurant finally does open up, and if it does, I’ll be one of the first patrons! It’s got a fantastic view, a nice breeze, and is just a very peaceful place to go to watch the comings and goings at the airport. For the time being, though, with no restaurant tenant upstairs, it’s an open public place, and there are outside stairways on both the left and right sides of the terminal building. You can walk up and stand at the railing and watch to your heart’s content, undisturbed, for as long as you like. Nobody chasing you away. There aren’t any chairs, but I was happy to stand and lean on the rail when I stopped by recently. I watched planes taking off and landing, and I saw and heard little stories as people walked outside the terminal building, talking to one another, heading for their planes.

  If none of this seems cool to you, then don’t bother going now, but do consider it when the restaurant and lounge opens up. But if the simple pleasure of watching planes come and go does appeal to you, if you don’t mind spending a half hour just lazily looking out over the runways and the bay, getting away from whatever your day’s stresses are, then you should stop by and check this place out! The terminal building is located on the east side of 1st Street S, between 5th and 6th Avenues South.

  One final note – there’s a nice, new children’s park next to the airport – Albert Whitted Park. If you have kids that might like to watch the planes, try taking them to the park instead of to the terminal building – they’re sure to enjoy it more. It’s an aviation themed park, with a kid’s version of a control tower and little rides that are shaped like airplanes. And it’s situated right on the water, so you can catch a cool breeze as the kids play and the planes take off and land. The park is located at 480 Bayshore Drive S. To get to it, drive behind the Mahaffey Theater building and turn towards the bay into what was once an extra parking lot for the old Bayfront Center. As you head out towards the bay, you’ll find the park on the left, with the runways of Albert Whitted on your right.

  For more information about Albert Whitted Airport, you can visit the Albert Whitted page on the City of St. Petersburg’s web site.