The House That Sunshine Built - Where Memories Bloom

Vince left his massive orchard in Auburn Hills, Michigan, and headed south to the Sunshine State in 1981. He'd spent years growing everything the Michigan summers would allow — sprawling gardens of fruits and vegetables, flowers of every kind. But Florida called, and he answered.

He and his wife settled in Tracy's Point, just a few houses down from the lot where this home would eventually stand. Since immigrating to the United States from Lithuania with his parents as a young child, Vince had carried that utmost of American dreams— to build a home of his own, from the ground up, exactly the way he wanted it. In 1995, he finally did.

Vince was a true craftsman — particular, methodical, and exacting in everything he touched. He designed the home himself. He oversaw every stage of construction, every detail, every decision. Nothing was rushed. Nothing was overlooked. He paid cash for each phase along the way — check by check, wall by wall, room by room — and he didn't move to the next stage until the last one was done right. The original blueprints and cancelled checks were found in the house decades later, still carefully kept. Stage-by-stage photographs of the build have been left in the home for the next family — a gift from the man who made it.

That same craftsman's precision followed Vince out back to his workshop — wired with electric, stocked with tools, and filled with the smell of fresh-cut wood. He'd spend hours out there, shaping and sanding, measuring twice and cutting once, turning raw lumber into beautiful furniture and cabinetry. A chair for a neighbor. A cabinet for a friend. A piece for the grandkids to take home. He gave most of it away — that was the point. The sawdust on the floor, the hum of the table saw, a finished piece carried across the yard — that workshop was where Vince was happiest. Some of those pieces are still in homes across the country.

And Vince was a gardener to his core. He planted the gardenias that still bloom in the yard today. He filled the property with flowers and life, bringing the green thumb that had fed an orchard in Michigan to the warm soil of Central Florida. His mother shared the same gift with her hands — she would sit in the sunroom, natural light pouring in from every angle, and hand-paint the flowers from Vince's garden onto fine china, giving the pieces away one by one. The family still treasures them.

On clear days — and clear nights — the family would gather at the dock and watch the Space Shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral, a bright arc of fire climbing into the sky, visible right from the backyard. Morning launches, afternoon launches, evening launches — they could see them all. When the grandkids couldn't be there, Vince's wife would take pictures with a film camera, develop them, and mail them north with handwritten letters. Real photos. Real letters. Real love, sent through the mail.

In the evenings, Vince would sit down at his organ or pick up his accordion, and the music would fill the living room, drift through the open floorplan, slip out through the sunroom, and carry across the canal toward the lake. On still nights, the notes traveled all the way to the water. It was the soundtrack of the house — as constant as the warm sunshine and the sweet smell of the gardenias.

When Vince passed, the home went to his son Bill.

Bill and Lynda had met back in Michigan — she was a nurse at the local hospital, working alongside Bill's mother, who volunteered there. Bill was home on leave from the Navy. They fell in love, moved to San Diego where Bill was stationed, and married in 1969 — right in the middle of the California sunshine, the flower-power era, Itchykoo Park on the radio and Spirit in the Sky in the air.

They came home to Michigan to raise their family. Years later, when Vince built the house in Tracy's Point, it became the place they'd always come back to — the family's anchor in the Florida sunshine.

Bill was a fisherman. His buddies on the lake called him Bass Bug Bill, and he earned the name. He and Vince would fish the waters of Lake Panasoffkee together, motoring down the canal from the backyard, casting lines, and maybe sharing a cold beer or two on the way home. The gardener and the fisherman, father and son, on the water together.

Bill loved mornings at the house. He was fanatical about making breakfast — it was his thing. When the kids and grandkids came down to visit, everyone would gather in the dining room while the morning sun streamed in through the bay windows, bathing the whole room in warm light. Fresh orange juice from the tree outside. Coffee. The morning news on in the background. Those bay windows are still there. The sun still comes in the same way.

The house just worked. Bill and Lynda had the master suite on one side, their own private wing. The kids settled into the guest bedrooms on the other side with their own bathroom, separated by the kitchen and living areas in between. Ample closet space kept everyone's things neat and tidy when the family came down to visit — no suitcases in the hallway, no piles on the chairs. Everyone had their space. Nobody was on top of each other. They kept the place immaculate — as did Vince. Pride of ownership ran in the family. Bill even had a throw rug in front of the electric fireplace TV stand that read "Squeaky Clean" — and he meant it.

The smell of Bill's breakfast would drift through the open floorplan while the warm breeze came off the canal through the sunroom. The kids chased each other through the living room. Someone was always heading out the back door toward the canal with a fishing rod. The sunroom filled with afternoon light and easy conversation. And at night, the kids were asleep in their wing and the house got quiet — just the adults on their side, the sound of the water outside, and the Florida night settling in. It was the perfect layout for a family that loved having people under their roof.

In the evenings, you'd find Bill in the garage — TV on, the warm Florida air rolling in through the screens. That garage wasn't just Bill's quiet retreat. On fall Saturdays, it became the place to be — friends packed in, the TV tuned to college football. Bill bled Michigan maize and blue, but not everyone in that garage agreed — Ohio State fans, Florida fans, Florida State fans, all of them making sure Bill heard about it. The friendly rivalry was half the fun. And on other nights, the poker table came out. Bill loved to entertain, and that 2-car screened garage was his stage. Good friends, cold beer, a card game, and the warm Florida evening rolling in through the screens. And when winter hit and the family back in Michigan was shoveling snow in the dark, the phone would ring. It was Bill — calling from that same garage, door up, wobble pop in hand — complaining about all the inches of sunshine he had to clear off the driveway. Said he might need to buy a sun blower at his age. Too much sunshine. Couldn't keep up. The kids groaned every time. Bill lived for it.

Four generations have walked through this house — 

Vince, the craftsman, who designed it, oversaw every nail and every board, filled the workshop with sawdust, the yard with gardenias, and the rooms with music. Bill and Lynda, who filled it with breakfast, bass fishing, and sunshine. Their children, who grew up coming back to it. Their grandchildren, who carry the memories forward.

Now it's ready for its next family — your family. 

Come plant your roots & grow those memories!

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