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Service Group Presents Holiday Home Tour

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By BARBARA ROUTEN, Tribune correspondent

Published: December 1, 2007

BRANDON - The General Federation of Women's Clubs Brandon Service League invites the public to enjoy three uniquely decorated houses on this year's Holiday Home Tour from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 8. Tickets are $12 and must be purchased in advance. Directions to the homes are printed on the tickets.

A bake sale with cookies, sweetbreads, brownies and cakes wrapped appropriately for gift giving will be held at the home of Raymond and Patty Conrad. Refreshments will be served at Wally and Claudia Ingram's home. Each house, including that of Allen and Lynn Despain, will have a drawing for a basket.

The Despain house boasts many Christmas trees.

"There are 10 full trees, some half trees, trees in the bathrooms and many on the porch," Lynn Despain said. One tree, laden with kitchen gadgets, hangs upside down above the breakfast table. A 12-foot-tall tree seems stands in the family room. Sprouting up elsewhere are a basket tree, an all-white tree and a Florida tree with cloisonne ornaments shaped like flamingos, crabs and seahorses.

Numerous Nativity sets are displayed throughout the house, and one room is full of Noah's ark toys and pictures. The couple also has a dedicated gift-wrapping room.

"Christmas and Easter are the most important times of the year, and what we celebrate," Lynn Despain said. "The rest makes people comfortable. With the decorations, you can talk about the Lord and share your faith - God even uses houses!"

Claudia Ingram said, "I usually do a room a night. It'll take two weeks."

This is the third house tour the Ingrams have participated in, and the house is the 49th Claudia has inhabited. She grew up in a military family. Her late father was Air Force Lt. Col. Frederick Fritz, and her husband, Walter C. Ingram, is an Army colonel. Their son Matthew served as a captain in the Air Force for six years.

She has transformed the couple's red dining room into a White House Christmas room, with 17 years' worth of commemorative white-and-gold White House ornaments on the tree. During the three years her family was stationed in Germany, Claudia collected upward of 35 nutcrackers and hundreds of ornaments.

Claudia Ingram founded the local Piecemakers Quilt Guild, which explains the 20 or so Christmas quilts on display. The advent calendar quilt pockets each have candy canes nestled inside - one to pull out each day.

"We're from Texas originally," she said. "We thought we'd go back, but all three of our sons attended the University of Florida and married Florida girls. "They aren't going anywhere," she said. "We built this house to have people over. We have Quilt Camp every summer. We enjoy doing it. It's part of being a Southerner - you open your home."

Money raised by the Holiday Home Tour enables the Brandon Service League to fill many needs for community organizations such as the American Cancer Society, Good Samaritan Mission, Emergency Care Help Organization, Brandon Care Pregnancy Center, Everyday Blessings, Brandon Outreach Clinic and Bill Carey Boys & Girls Club of Brandon. For information about the league or to inquire about membership, visit www.bsl.cc.

Tickets for the tour are available by contacting a league member or, while they last, at the Green Boutique, 1032 Bloomingdale Ave., Valrico; the South Shore Group Real Estate office, 16637 FisHhawk Blvd., Suite 103, Lithia; the Rolling Pin Kitchen Emporium, 2080 Badlands Drive, Brandon; David Andrew Hair Studio & Spa, 725 Lithia-Pinecrest Rd., Brandon; and the law office of B. Lee Elam, 101 E. Lumsden Road, Brandon.

For information or to purchase tickets, call Candy Jackson, home tour chairwoman, at (813) 624-3453. To inquire about corporate sponsorships, call Sandy Pullinger at (813) 684-5479.

Send news and photos of community interest to Barbara Routen at The Tampa Tribune, 505 W. Robertson St., Brandon FL 33511, e-mail neighbors@tampabay .rr.com or call (813) 657-4531.

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