For Sale: A $3.5 Million Historic Home on St. Petersburg’s Mirror Lake
Designed by celebrated architect Cade Allen, the 1930s home underwent extensive renovations.
One of the last remaining single-family homes on St. Petersburg’s Mirror Lake will hit the market on Friday for $3.5 million after undergoing extensive renovations.
250 Mirror Lake Dr. N was built in 1937 by Cade Allen, a prominent local builder who helped establish St. Petersburg’s Allendale neighborhood. It was custom-made for Ena Jackson, a wealthy widow whose late husband made a fortune selling ice in the days before refrigeration was widespread.
A stonemason by trade, Allen put his own twist on the Mediterranean revival-style home. Instead of using stucco as was common in Florida at the time, the exterior was made from materials like marble, granite, fieldstone, silica and sandstone shipped in from the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Indiana.
In 2024, the city of St. Petersburg established the Mirror Lake Historic District. All the properties directly circling the lake including the Cade Allen home, the Tomlinson Adult Learning Center and the Unitarian Universalist Church are afforded certain protections that make it harder to demolish or alter them without city approval.
But that wasn’t always the case.
By 2023, 250 Mirror Lake Dr. N had been converted into law offices and was slated for demolition.
Backstreets Capital stepped in with a plan to preserve the home while building new condos directly behind it. It purchased the 4,330-square-foot house and three neighboring vacant parcels for a combined $5 million in October 2024.
The home’s layout has been altered slightly. It has a state-of-the-art kitchen, central air conditioning, larger bathrooms and updated plumbing. Many of the original elements have been preserved: the hardwood floors, the spiral stone columns out front, the arch-shaped entryways, the clay-tiled roof and the wood-framed windows.
Restoring 250 Mirror Lake Dr. N has been a passion project for Backstreets founder and president Will Conroy. He used to work across the street from the property in a different Cade Allen home.
He estimates more than 7,000 hours of work were poured into the property. His team brought on a sub-contractor called All Trades Historical that specializes in historic home renovations.
“We didn’t think Mirror Lake would be the same without this house,” Conroy said. “Cade Allen is a legend. I would argue this is his masterpiece. Who are we to tear that down?”
The condo project — dubbed The Cade — is still under construction. Conroy said he wanted to build something that would mesh well with the rest of Mirror Lake. The 15-unit condo will rise just seven stories, lower than the maximum allowed height. Additional stones salvaged from the Cade Allen home will line the entryway.
Manny Leto, executive director of Preserve the Burg, said Backstreets’ work in Mirror Lake is a great example of how historic preservation and new development can co-exist.
“Any great city is going to have layers of architecture, layers of development,” he said. “That’s what makes cities interesting and vibrant.”
His organization supported a years-long effort to win historic protections for Mirror Lake. A lawsuit filed against the city of St. Petersburg by the previous owner of 250 Mirror Lake Dr. N sought to overturn the newly-created historic district, but the city ultimately prevailed.
Source: Rebecca Liebson, “For sale: A $3.5 million historic home on St. Petersburg’s Mirror Lake,” Tampa Bay Times, Sept. 17, 2026.
