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PO Box 1212 Tampa, FL 33601 Pinellas Updated January 2006
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Mansion Would Be Home To Charity
TAMPA - It may be the imprint of his legacy - a sprawling complex in Carrollwood dedicated to his family and designed to carry on his charitable work.
Kiran Patel, one of Tampa's leading philanthropists, plans to build a 35,000-square-foot home and office complex on the west shore of White Trout Lake, near his current home.
"It will be a landmark, an art piece, a masterpiece," Patel said Monday. "It should be something different and hopefully have a bigger purpose than just a huge, large, massive structure."
The eye-popping plans cover a wall of designer Jim McQuerter's office on North Armenia Avenue, a few miles east of the 17-acre project site, now mostly woods and a few vacant houses Patel began snapping up a few years ago.
At least half of the building will be for foundation work, McQuerter said. Space would be dedicated to offices and conferences rooms. A 3,700-square-foot banquet room with seating for 142 will be serviced from a nearly 600-square-foot kitchen.
The Patels would live in the remaining space, still quite sumptuous at more than 10,000 square feet. Plans call for eventually building smaller houses along the property's 850 feet of lakefront.
Because of the mix of residential and commercial use, a rezoning request for the property filed with Hillsborough County earlier this month likely will be amended, said Michael Horner, Patel's planning consultant. A hearing on the rezoning is set for April 3.
The proposed two-story main structure is a curving blend of glass, steel, granite and marble. There are few hard angles or straight edges like the geometric lines of conventional houses or buildings.
McQuerter said he was inspired by the expressionist postmodern design of Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.
"It's not like any other house," McQuerter said. "It's very modern and futuristic. There's nothing wood-clad about it."
Yes, there's a pool. It stretches 450 feet and features an island, a curving peninsula and shaded coves under overhanging balconies.
Patel and McQuerter began talking about the project two years ago, and it could be another two or three years before the complex is ready for the moving vans, provided the zoning is approved and Patel moves forward with the plans.
Patel and his wife, Pallavi, have donated millions to charities in the Tampa Bay area and worldwide. They gave $18.5 million to start the Dr. Kiran C. Patel Center for Global Solutions at the University of South Florida and $5 million to what became the Dr. Pallavi Patel Performing Arts Conservatory at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
Patel said at the heart of this building project is family. The couple have three children.
"I have a desire for my children and others to carry on our legacy in this country and around the world from that place," Patel said. "After we are gone ... go on with the work. But that's my own directions. It's in God's hands."
The couple moved from Zambia to New York in 1976 and settled in the Tampa Bay area a few years later. Patel became chairman of the board of WellCare HMO Inc., which he nurtured and merged with other health care companies until selling his majority interest in 2003.
He lives on Lake Carroll in a modest home that has undergone two additions.
Patel said the proposed plan would have him paying $250 to $350 per square foot. That puts the building's cost at more than $10 million. The building will be environmentally friendly, cooled and lighted with power from the sun, wind and cascading waterfalls, McQuerter said.
In Hillsborough County, the most expensive home belongs to Don Wallace, founder of Lazy Days RV. The Hillsborough County Property Appraiser's Office lists the market value of the 13,033-square-foot Mediterranean Revival-style house on Bayshore Boulevard at $9.9 million.
The biggest, though, is a 30,698-square-foot Avila mansion, according to the property appraiser's office. It was built by Paul Bilzerian, who was convicted in the late 1980s of securities violations. Its market value, according the county property appraiser, is $6.5 million, and it's currently on the market for $10 million.
So where might the value of Patel's house land on this scale?
"We couldn't speculate on the value until it's finished and appraised. You have to take into account the construction quality and the neighborhood, said Warren Weathers, chief deputy property appraiser for Hillsborough County.
Florida's biggest home is Donald Trump's 43,000-square-foot Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.
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