I was driving my daughter and 90-year-old mother after lunch when I realized I had fallen short as a parent. Mom pointed to a concrete-block house. “That’s the last house Sherman built before he retired,” she said.
It was? (No, it was not, but mom gets a “Hey-she’s-90” hall pass). It was, however, a home built by my late father. That’s when it hit me: In my 20 years of raising children, I had neglected to show them an important piece of their grandfather’s legacy.
Dad was a builder here in Ocala, building residential and commercial structures for most of his adult life. He built a lot of houses. I know. I lived in most of them. When your parent is a builder, you acquire the skill of adaptability. That’s a nice way of saying when the spec house does not sell, the builder’s family moves in.
Dad had a fondness for tri-level design and unique ones at that. Think Brady Bunch home meets Frank Lloyd Wright, sort of. As a kid, I loved it. I often had a new bedroom and, in fitting tri-level form, sometimes it was upstairs or on the bottom or main floor. Dad mixed it up each time.
In some ways, his work was a pace different than the others in the neighborhood. A Yeary home stood out in between the traditional Colonial brick and stucco houses. This didn’t stop Dad from pushing the architectural envelope outside or in. My bedroom once had a built-in sitting area encased in mustard-yellow shag carpet floor to wall, a la Austin Powers.
Thinking of that bedroom adds to my maternal guilt.
Not too long ago, I found myself in that very neighborhood of my past, dotted with Sherman Yeary creations. I had not been there in years, but I took the long way home. Dad’s houses lined the streets just off a main road once known as Doris Drive. I was a newborn on Doris Drive in a tri-level home not built by my father, which somehow doesn’t seem right. But he made up for it with several houses right behind it.
A flood of sentiment washed over me as I drove down the street where dad built three houses in a row. We lived in the middle one. Instantly, I was a pre-teen again lounging with my girlfriends in my shagged sitting nook on the second floor. I “helped” dad build the house to our left, walking a few steps out our front door to the work site with my make-shift toolbox he made just for me. I plastered my first drywall in that house.
To our right was a one-story spec that a mother and daughter bought from dad. They invited me over most Friday nights to eat s’mores made in their counter-top broiler. Driving by, I could taste melted chocolate on toasted marshmallow.
My sister lived two blocks away in a custom Yeary home where I’d walk most afternoons to babysit my young nieces. Dad liked to include big kitchens with living areas, ahead of the design curve. I could make snacks and keep an eye on two active little girls.
Writer Pat Conroy opens his southern classic “Prince of Tides” writing, “My wound is geography.” We would eventually move to other neighborhoods across town. An unsold spec house was calling.
For me, here — on old Doris Drive — geography was my salve. It was my sense of place grounding me with a builder’s hand in familiarity and love.

I believe a family field trip is in order soon.