Historic Hubbard Alvarez Bungalow
East Little Havana bungalow gets new owners, a fresh life
A landmark 1921 East Little Havana bungalow glows anew as a new home for an environmental group, thanks to preservationists.
BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI / AVIGLUCCI@MIAMIHERALD.COM
For 40 years, Rolando and Mercedes Alvarez lovingly tended their elegant, gabled Miami bungalow, a 1921 landmark sitting atop a slight rise roughly a long touchdown pass from the Orange Bowl -- until, aging and in declining health, they agreed to sell to a developer who planned to tear it down.
Six years later, the OB is gone. But the Alvarez abode abides, saved from certain ruin by Dade Heritage Trust, and newly and fully restored inside and out.
Saturday, the Hubbard-Alvarez bungalow at 138 N.W. 16th Ave. -- now an official historic landmark named for the two families who occupied it, and lightly converted to office use -- begins a fresh life.
Its new owners, Citizens for a Better South Florida -- a nonprofit environmental education group that focuses on underserved communities -- will establish its headquarters in the bungalow. The group's leaders hope the restored house will become a beacon of possibility for the struggling neighborhood around it.
The group, which purchased the home from the nonprofit preservation group with $450,000 from a Miami-Dade County voter-approved bond issue, will remove the concrete in the front yard to plant a demonstration garden of native plants.
``It's not just preservation, but you need to have a steward who is always going to be protecting this home,'' Citizens founder Arsenio Milian told a crowd of public officials and preservationists gathered Friday for a ribbon-cutting.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/20/1490199/east-little-havana-bungalo...
