Shorty's here for the long haul
The Beach Strip is her home
January 11, 2010
Paul Wilson
Florence (Shorty) Lafave stood on the balcony of her new lakefront townhouse and wept.
She watched the wrecking crew next door flatten the converted cottage that had been her home for 50 years.
"Red probably wouldn't have sold," she says. Louie (Red) Lafave was her husband.
He was the one who nicknamed her Shorty and it stuck. "Half the people on the Beach Strip don't know my real name," she says.
At one time, she was five-foot-even, in heels. At 84, she's several inches shorter.
Not long ago, the little lady found herself facing a big decision.
When Shorty and Red came to the Beach Strip in 1960, they paid all they could afford -- $7,000 -- for a big lot next to the old Dynes Tavern.
They bought it from Jimmy Dynes. Red joined two cottages together and they had a home.
Shorty was born in Nova Scotia, but came to love the Beach Strip and the sturdy people who live along the windy spit of sand.
Red went suddenly, 18 years ago. Shorty stayed on. She loved that lake.
Then a man named Tony DePasquale bought the Dynes Hotel, which had operated since 1847. In 2007, he illegally demolished the historic structure. That brought a fine of $20,000, perhaps just a cost of doing business.
Then Branthaven Homes of Burlington took over development of the site.
They wanted a little more land for the project. Shorty's land.
She told them she would need a place to live. Branthaven said it was building lots of homes.
She told them there was only one kind of home she was interested in -- one right on the lake.
So a deal was struck to let Shorty have her choice of the front-row townhouses to be built right on the water. But they're three storeys. Shorty is good on stairs now, but she's not sure she'll continue to be.
OK, Branthaven said, we'll put in an elevator. A nice four-person model with wood grain trim and phone.
With that $30,000 conveyance, she was getting a home that sells for $500,000.
"You have a stove, fridge and dishwasher, don't you?" Branthaven asked.
"Yes," Shorty said, "and they're all 30 years old."
So there would be new stainless- steel appliances installed as well.
Construction began on the Branthaven complex, called BeachHouse. The plan called for 56 townhouses and several commercial units, including a restaurant.
About a dozen units were slated to go on Shorty's property, but work couldn't start on them until she was out.
And Shorty wasn't moving until they had her new place ready. On Nov. 15, Shorty became the first resident of the complex.
Friends and family trekked through the mud with Shorty's possessions.
She took the front bedroom, with a wall of windows on the lake. Her son has the back room.
Shorty did a little decorating. First thing, she mounted a portrait of Red in the living room.
And on Nov. 23 she stood out on that big-vista balcony and watched the power shovel swat her old home. "It only took two or three bangs and it was gone," she says.
Yes, she cried hard.
Sales at BeachHouse have gone very well. Just six homes remain.
But no one else has yet moved in. Shorty lives in the middle of a chaotic construction site, but her many friends find their way to her door anyway.
She tells them there will be no more moves. No nursing home.
"I say to them, 'When the time comes, I'm going out in that lake. And don't you rescue me 'til I'm gone.'"
* * *
About 40 years ago, Shorty came home to her cottage and discovered that Hydro had plunked a 15-storey tower right in the middle of the view she got from her kitchen window.
Ever since, she and everyone else on the Beach Strip has wished those hydro towers -- nearly 50 of them -- would just go away. It won't happen. Costs to bury the cables could be more than $70 million.
Hydro One crews are at work now on refurbishment. A couple of months ago they buzzed the area with a chopper. They thought they could do some of the work from the "air stairs."
But it proved too windy. So now a crew of about 20 is doing the work with cranes instead. They will replace five wind-damaged and corroded lines, each several kilometres long.
Then that power corridor will be set for a few more decades . That's good, if you need those 230,000 volts of juice. But bad if you love that view.
pwilson@thespec
