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Neighborhood Profile: Casa del Lago, Lutz

 
Anh enlisted architect Toliver Payne to help create the 4,316-square-foot home.
Anh enlisted architect Toliver Payne to help create the 4,316-square-foot home.
Published Jan. 18, 2017

LUTZ

Anh Flinter stands in her family room, looking out over the pool, and talks about how much she and her family enjoy the picturesque view of the lake beyond.

Her joy, almost tangible, makes it hard to believe she moved to Florida under protest, "kicking and screaming," she said.

She and her husband, Henry, had just finished a three-year renovation of their Wayne, N.J., home in 2009 when he broke the news to her that he got transferred. To Tampa. They had to move.

They had three daughters, the youngest only 9 months old. And Anh came from a family so large that more than 40 seats were needed for holiday gatherings. Anh didn't want to leave.

That was then.

"I love it now," said the stay-at-home-mom, 47, who used to work in commercial banking. "The kids got settled in and we started meeting people."

When the Flinters first came down, a real estate agent directed them to Tampa Palms, a huge development of some 2,700 homes and almost as many apartment units. It had fairly easy access to both Henry's job on Harbour Island in Tampa and the girls' school, Carrollwood Day School.

It was fine until a couple of years ago. As the girls got older, they'd outgrown the house. So the family started looking.

They had planned to stay in Tampa Palms, until Anh found her dream lot — an acre on Cooper Lake — in 2015 in Lutz's Casa del Lago subdivision. They bought it.

Envisioning what could be built on the lot, Anh went to work. With friend Margaret Weiss, a real estate agent, she went to Bradenton and looked at the new homes being built there. She took notes on the features she liked and cobbled them together into her dream home. Then she enlisted architect Toliver Payne to make it work — and keep her in her budget.

They ended up with a large, one-story home with an open floor plan and three separate suite areas — a master suite, a guest suite and the girls' suite. Each has its own bathroom and walk-in closet. The girls also have a study area, which, Anh said, they don't use much. "They prefer to sit at the island and work," she said.

It's easy to understand why. The huge 12.5- by 5-foot granite-topped island — awesome even to their architect — with a built-in sink sits in the heart of the home. Between the kitchen and the family room, it has a view out over what seems to be their own private lake.

Actually, it kind of is their own private lake. Their lot extends far into the water, Henry said. It's a great place to fish from their dock, which he had built for a future boat.

"I don't even have a canoe now," he said jokingly.

But chances are he soon might. A certified public accountant, Henry, 52, recently left his job in Tampa and started his own accounting firm. He now works from home.

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The screened lanai encloses an outdoor kitchen and living room with a fireplace in addition to the pool and spa.

"We like to spend a lot of time outdoors. We could never do that in New Jersey," Anh said.

When the Flinters moved down from the north, the plan was to only stay one year. Seven years later, they're true, not-going-anywhere Floridians.

Anh continues to try to persuade her family to join her in paradise. She already got her father to move down. He lives in a condo on the Hillsborough-Pasco border. A couple of cousins live nearby, too.

And her five siblings? Not yet.

Well, the good thing is that even if she never persuades any of them to move, she has plenty of room for when they visit.

Contact Patti Ewald at pagewald@hotmail.com.

Editor's note: This story has been edited to correct the spelling of Anh Flinter's first name.