WESLEY CHAPEL
Their house in Tampa Palms was getting kind of tight for the Swanson family.
Two teenage boys and a young daughter filled it up and they had a fourth child on the way. So they went looking for a new home, well, they went looking for a lot on which to custom-build their new home.
They had a wish list for that house but two things were musts: It had to be big and it had to have easy access to a highway.
Rozales Swanson is a cardiac surgeon who splits his time between Tampa General Hospital and Bayfront Health Port Charlotte. He had to find somewhere that made his commutes to work easier.
Antoinette, his wife and high school sweetheart, said they looked at new construction up and down Interstate 75 from FishHawk Ranch in Lithia to Seven Oaks in Wesley Chapel.
And then they discovered a brand-, brand-new subdivision just north of the Shops at Wiregrass off Bruce B. Downs in Wesley Chapel in Pasco County. It was so new, in fact, that theirs would become one of the first two houses built in Estancia at Wiregrass.
The master-planned community has walking trails and a private neighborhood park. There is a clubhouse, the Estancia Club, a large pool, tennis courts and basketball courts. When finished, there will be a half dozen or so separate little neighborhoods, about half of which will be gated.
The Swansons said it seemed to offer many more floor plan options than the other neighborhoods they looked at. It gave them the option to customize a large two-story home with some of their wants, like having both the master and a guest suite on the first floor.
Three more bedrooms, a game-centric loft and a theater room with a large, cozy balcony overlooking the back yard are on the second floor.
After deciding Estancia was the place they wanted to live, they drove up and down the streets of the gated 56-home Toscana section looking for just the right lot. One of the first buyers, they had their pick of lots. They narrowed it down to two. One was on water, overlooking one of the several ponds in the development. The other was big and private, situated on a cul-de-sac abutting a conservation area.
In the end, they chose the big lot, mainly for their 13-year-old son, Devante, who wanted room to play soccer in the back yard.
They are just thrilled with their choice and that says a lot, for the couple has seen and lived in a lot of places. They are from Columbus, Ga., where they both went to high school. After graduating, Rozales joined the Navy. They lived in Japan for a while and Michigan. They lived in Washington, D.C., when Rozales was in medical school at Howard University. He did his training to become a surgeon at Tampa General, where he would end up working. That brought them to the area.
Antoinette has a degree in medical technology but for now she's working raising their four children, including a 4-month-old daughter, Destiny.
"Everything we need is within five minutes of us," she said.
And, the doctor has only a 30-minute drive to work in Tampa.
Contact Patti Ewald at pagewald@gmail.com.