MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD HOUSE SUITS RENTERS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 19, 1992                   TAG: 9201190077
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: E4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By PATRICK K. LACKEY  LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: HAMPTON                                LENGTH: Medium
MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD HOUSE SUITS RENTERS
There's life in the fast lane, life in the slow lane, and for residents of one house in Hampton, life on the median.
When the small house was built in 1952, Todds Lane passed in front of it and no road passed behind it. In 1970, however, a short stretch of the busy road was split, so one lane remained in front and three lanes passed behind the house, within eight feet of the attached garage.
The new arrangement aligned Todds Lane with two other roads, but the house was stranded alone on a triangular traffic island.
Ida Mae Pate, who then lived there with her husband, Stanley, was unable to hang up her washing when the nearby traffic light was red.
She could hang up clothes during green lights, Ida Mae Pate said, but when the traffic was stopped, she felt drivers staring at her.
"It made me feel funny," she said.
"It was right noisy for me," Stanley recalled recently. "It was so lit up at night you could walk through the house with the lights off."
The Pates, who had bought the house and lot in 1960 for $10,500, lasted a couple of years on the traffic island before moving to Kernersville, N.C.
The house, a few blocks from Mercury Boulevard and Interstate 64, has been for sale ever since. Most of that time it has been rented.
"It's not going to be an easy piece of property to sell," said Hampton Zoning Administrator Hardy Cash. "I am glad I don't own it."
The neighbors across the road are Quincy's Family Steak House to the east, Auto-Bath Car Wash to the west, and a 7-Eleven to the north.
"There's not a thing in the world unique about living here," Ida Mae Pate said.
And the present tenants like it.
They are Virginia and Floyd Stephenson, both store clerks, and their four children, ages 11 to 22.
Virginia Stephenson said many city dwellers live on smaller lots. The house stands on an 18,000-square-foot lot. The island has 12,000 more square feet, all vacant and owned by other parties.
The back yard is too cramped for a safe barbecue, but the front and side yards are roomy enough, though hardly private.
Virginia Stephenson likes the traffic island much better than the apartment they moved from two years ago. "In an apartment complex you have to be careful you don't make too much noise," she said. "My son plays the bass all he wants, and there's no one to bother."
She'd rather hear cars honking or squealing than footsteps overhead and other tenants' stereos.
Still, many a passer-by has marveled that anyone could live on a traffic island.
"It has always amazed me after all these years the house is still there," said Tom Crispell, technical services supervisor in the city traffic engineering department.
Back when Todds Lane was first divided, the city offered the Pates $22,000 for their house and land, but the couple wanted more.
The land today is assessed at $4,900 and the house at $21,100. The rent is $200 a month, Pate said.
He is asking $90,000 for the house and land, figuring the lot would be worth plenty if someone could get the zoning changed from residential.
According to the most recent traffic count, more than 12,000 vehicles pass the house in a 24-hour weekday period.
If the island were zoned commercial, said Cash, "They'd have more fender benders than you could shake a stick at."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB