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'There's Not Going To Be A Substitute For Him'

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By JAN HOLLINGSWORTH, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 6, 2007

PLANT CITY - The demolition crew showed up at first light on the second day of August. Within hours, the old frame house that stood at Thomas and Drane streets was little more than a pile of debris.

It wasn't much of a house. The roof leaked. The floor canted to one side. The concrete steps had retreated a couple of feet from the crumbling front porch.

The house languished for years on the market, a 'for sale' sign planted among weeds. Yet where others saw a condemned eyesore, Robert Powell saw promise and renewal. Last spring he bought the house for $101,000.

In less than six months, both of them were gone.

'His goal was to set me and the kids up for the future,' said Powell's widow, Mollie. 'He was going to renovate that house.'

He planned to build a four-story building in its place, with condos above and retail or office space below.

No one ever accused Robert Powell of lacking vision, especially when it came to matters of salvation and preservation.

'He loved to build houses in the historic style. That was his passion,' said Marlene Sanchez, a city planning technician who worked with Powell on many projects.

Fresh from a bone marrow transplant and an encouraging, if brief, remission from leukemia, Powell's outlook was as bright as the purple periwinkles that sprouted in the shadow of the unlovely abode.

'He was so excited to have a second chance at life. Everything was so new and fresh,' Mollie Powell said.

She was referring not to life after cancer, but to another, lesser-known life of the devoted father, husband and highly regarded building contractor.

She was talking about life after prison.

To understand Robert Powell, one must first comprehend his unfailing belief in the power of redemption.

Born in Vidalia, Ga., the second youngest of seven children, Powell was 6 when his parents divorced. He and three of his siblings spent two years in a state boys' home.

'That was probably the beginning of him having a lot of problems,' Mollie Powell said.

By age 18, Robert Powell was serving time in a Florida prison for armed robbery. An escape from a work-release program followed by two years on the lam landed him back in prison. It wasn't long before he escaped again.

'He hatched a scheme to jump the fence, with automatic weapons blazing,' Mollie Powell said. 'Now how crazy is this story?'

No crazier, say, than upright, middle-class woman falling in love with the quiet young man who in 1996 moved in next door to the suburban Brandon home she shared with her parents.

The ex-convict had been out of prison two weeks.

Mollie Powell was 29 and saving to buy a home of her own. Robert Powell, at 33, had spent the past 15 years either locked up or eluding capture.

He was, she said, completely transformed and looking for a clean, fresh start.

'He told me he had been locked up, and I flipped out,' she said. 'This was just not the kind of guy you bring home to your parents.'

But she couldn't help herself. There was such an aura of tranquility to this man; she felt compelled to discover the secret of his inner peace.

The turning point, she said, had come to Robert Powell six years before, as he stood on a rooftop in Bradford County and contemplated his third escape.

'He was looking up at the sky and said to God, 'I've got three options,'' Mollie Powell said.

He could flee again and end up on the run; end up killing someone or getting killed; or he could give his life to God and turn it around.

'In prison he was loan-sharking, gambling, getting high,' she said. 'He prayed and asked Jesus into his heart. He was transformed.'

Of course, it was not easy to persuade anyone that 'one of the baddest guys in prison' had turned over a new leaf, she said. But there were mentors who believed in him.

Two years after they met, after Mollie Powell came to share his religious commitment, the couple married and settled in Plant City.

'There is no way you could live in the house with Robert and not love God,' she said.

They purchased an old home on Collins Street, in one of Plant City's historical districts, at his bride's behest.

'There were holes in the floor. It was the money pit,' she said. 'Robert laughed when he saw it. He said, 'Even I can't fix this place.''

But he did. It was the beginning of what was to become Powell Construction. Much of his work focused on remodeling homes in the Brandon area.

Powell built his first spec house in Plant City's historical district at 903 N. Palmer St. Then another at 905 N. Palmer St. - both on vacant lots in the bungalow style of the historical homes that surrounded them.

'He had a good eye for compatibility,' said Shelby Bender of the city's Historic Resources Board.

Mollie Powell, who had a background in construction before she met her husband, served as vice president of the company.

Life was good. The union produced three children: Joshua, 8; Ethan, 6; and Emma, 3.

'He was a very hands-on father. All the girls at Home Depot knew our kids because he would always take them to work with him,' she said.

The boys even helped with one of their father's pet projects: the construction of two duplexes for staff members at Steppin' Stone Farm, a home for troubled girls.

They were not present, however, when their father told his story to the girls of Steppin' Stone.

'The kids didn't know he had been in prison until after he died,' Mollie Powell said. 'He wanted to wait to tell them.'

But he didn't want to wait to share his story with the girls of Steppin' Stone.

'Prison awaits you,' he told them. 'You can't live 90-to-nothing and not have consequences.'

Mollie Powell said she believes her husband's years in the state boys' home gave him a special affinity for the farm's residents.

'He could recognize himself in these girls, their choices,' she said.

In February 2006, Robert Powell was diagnosed with a highly aggressive form of leukemia. In June, after he completed the Steppin' Stone project, he underwent a bone marrow transplant with stem cells donated from one of his brothers.

By late February 2007, seemingly on the road to recovery, he put a contract on the sad little house at 102 N. Thomas St. He paid a visit to the city to discuss his plans with the staff.

'We were thrilled to see him,' Sanchez said. 'He was thin and pale, but he was telling us how he finally kicked the disease and was ready to get back to work.'

He was fatigued, his wife said. But he had reason to be.

'He was constantly doing stuff, still helping people,' she said. 'When he was still recovering last November from his transplant he went and roofed an old lady's house.'

The Powells closed on the Thomas Street house on a Monday in March. The next day, at a routine doctor's visit, they received the news: The leukemia was back.

Less than six weeks later, Powell, 43, died from complications of a second marrow transplant.

'He had a very big life. You just don't meet men like him,' Mollie Powell said. 'There's not going to be a substitute for him.'

His vision for the property on Thomas Street, however, may be realized.

Mollie Powell has found a developer from Tampa who purchased the property in September.

'His plan is to do exactly what Robert's plan was,' she said.

A four-story building is no small legacy. Neither is the peace and grace one man brought to his community.

Reporter Jan Hollingsworth can be reached at (813) 865-4436 or jhollingsworth@tampatrib.com.

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