Key West cottages on hex-block sidewalks. Craftsman bungalows with 100-year-old bones. One of St. Pete's two designated Artist Enclaves, with the Hexagon Block Sidewalk Preservation overlay protecting the streetscape. We rebuilt a 100-year-old wood single-family home here that other contractors said should be torn down, and we have run that kind of work in Old Southeast, Old Northeast, Roser Park, and Kenwood. Recognized by Preserve the Burg for the whole-house remodel.
If you're planning a home remodeling project in Old Southeast St. Pete, you're working in one of the city's most distinctive neighborhoods — roughly 500 homes tucked between 4th Street South and Lassing Park on Tampa Bay. Most of the housing stock dates to the 1920s through 1950s, with the primary building boom in the 1920s and 1930s producing the Key West-style cottages and Craftsman bungalows that define the neighborhood's character.
Old Southeast isn't Old Northeast — and that's the point. Where your neighbor to the north has formal Mediterranean Revival estates on wide brick-street boulevards, Old Southeast has a more intimate scale: smaller lots, front-porch-forward cottages, colored hexagon block sidewalks preserved under a city-designated overlay district, and a designated Artists Enclave that lets residents use their homes as studios and galleries. The architectural identity leans coastal vernacular — low-pitched roofs, deep porches, wood siding, and floor plans built for cross-ventilation before air conditioning.
Median home values sit around $480K, with waterfront properties near Lassing Park reaching $1.5M–$2.3M. The neighborhood is growing with younger buyers drawn to the character and location — artists, creative professionals, and first-time renovators who want to modernize without erasing what makes these homes worth owning.
Late-career owners of $750K+ homes who have been through one fixed-bid renovation and rejected the change-order shell game. They want open-book T&M, weekly budget reports, and a single point of accountability — Revolution coordinates design and construction under one contract through independent design partners. Most of our work is on Old Northeast, Snell Isle, and Shore Acres homes for owners who want to know where every dollar went.
Your 1920s Old Southeast cottage kitchen was designed for an icebox and a two-burner stove. It's narrow, closed off from the living space, and wired for a single light fixture. Opening it up means removing or modifying the central load-bearing wall — structural engineering, a steel beam or LVL header, and rerouting whatever electrical and plumbing runs through it. In a home this age, expect cast iron waste lines and undersized electrical behind those walls.
Revolution's 20+ W-2 carpenters on payroll handle finish details that matter in character homes: matching existing trim profiles, integrating new cabinetry with original hardwood floors, and keeping the cottage feel while bringing the kitchen into this century. See our kitchen remodel cost guide for St. Pete-specific pricing.
Learn about kitchen remodeling →Bathroom remodels in Old Southeast almost always reveal the plumbing situation. Cast iron drain, waste, and vent piping in 1920s–1940s homes is 80 to 100-plus years old — well past the 50-to-70-year expected lifespan. Florida's moisture and salt air corrode cast iron from both sides.
Most Old Southeast homes sit on pier-and-beam foundations, which actually makes pipe access easier than slab-on-grade homes in newer neighborhoods — your plumber can work from beneath the floor without cutting concrete. Budget $10,000–$30,000 for cast iron replacement on top of the bathroom scope itself. The most efficient time to do it is when walls and floors are already open.
Learn about bathroom remodeling →Every home built in Old Southeast between the 1920s and 1940s has cast iron drain, waste, and vent piping — now 80 to 100-plus years old. The expected service life is 50 to 70 years. Florida's moisture-rich environment and salt air from Tampa Bay corrode these pipes from the outside while water and sewer gases eat them from the inside.
The silver lining: most Old Southeast homes sit on pier-and-beam foundations. That means access from beneath the floor structure without cutting through a concrete slab. In the handful of later homes (1950s) built on slab-on-grade, replacement may require tunneling or trenchless methods. Either way, the budget impact is $10,000–$30,000 depending on home size and foundation type. This isn't speculative — it's the standard condition in homes this age. The question is when you address it, and the answer is during your next kitchen or bathroom remodel when the walls are already open.
Read our cast iron plumbing guide for the full picture on what to expect and how to budget.
Old Southeast's Key West-style cottages have their own renovation personality. Lower ceiling heights than the Craftsman bungalows in Old Northeast or Kenwood. Narrower hallways. Smaller room footprints built for cross-ventilation, not modern furniture dimensions. The central load-bearing wall runs the length of the home, separating the narrow kitchen from the living space.
Opening these floor plans requires a structural engineer to design a replacement header — typically steel or laminated veneer lumber. But in a cottage with 8-foot or lower ceilings, you're working with tighter vertical clearances for the beam, and the existing framing often doesn't match modern dimensional lumber sizes. Custom connection details are common. Budget $8,000–$20,000 for the structural work, but the transformation is dramatic — these cottages were built with beautiful bones and proportions that modern open-concept living brings back to life.
Old Southeast is home to the city's only Hexagon Block Preservation District — a designated overlay protecting the colored hex-block sidewalks that define the neighborhood's streetscape. This isn't cosmetic preference. It's a city-enforced requirement.
Any renovation work that affects the sidewalk, driveway approach, or front yard must preserve or restore existing hex-block pavers. During a renovation, heavy material deliveries, dumpster placement, and equipment staging can damage irreplaceable historic pavers if your contractor doesn't plan for it. We protect these surfaces before work begins — plywood runways for heavy loads, staged delivery zones that avoid the sidewalk, and careful dumpster placement. If you've ever watched a careless contractor crack 100-year-old hex blocks with a concrete truck, you understand why this matters.
Call 727-888-6161. We've rebuilt the bungalows other contractors refused to touch — and we know how to protect those hex-block sidewalks while we do it.
All Old Southeast permits run through the City of St. Petersburg Development Services — not Pinellas County. Standard review timeline is 2–5 weeks.
Old Southeast is not a designated historic district. No Certificate of Appropriateness is required — a meaningful difference from nearby Old Northeast's Granada Terrace, where historic preservation review adds time and cost to exterior changes. The hex-block sidewalk overlay protects the streetscape but does not restrict what you do inside your home or to your building's structure. Standard city permitting applies for all interior and exterior renovation work.
For waterfront properties near Lassing Park that fall within a FEMA flood zone, the City's 49% Substantial Improvement threshold and cumulative 12-month tracking window apply. Pull your property's flood map at FEMA's Flood Map Service Center before finalizing any renovation scope — flood zone designations vary by parcel in this neighborhood.
2–5 weeks
City of St. Petersburg Development Services
Not Historic
Hex-block overlay only — no COA required for any work
Kitchen and bathroom renovations in Old Southeast typically fall in the mid-range for St. Petersburg — home values and finish expectations are lower than Snell Isle or Venetian Isles, but the hidden infrastructure costs are identical. A galley-to-open kitchen conversion in a 1920s cottage starts at $45,000–$65,000 when you factor in the structural beam, panel upgrade, and cast iron assessment.
The unique cost factor in Old Southeast is the character preservation. Matching original trim profiles, integrating new work with old-growth hardwood floors, and keeping cottage proportions while modernizing takes skilled finish carpentry — not a subcontractor rushing to the next job. Our T&M pricing model means you see every invoice and get weekly budget reports. You pay for what your project actually costs, not a padded fixed bid built around risk that may never surface.
$45,000–$65,000+
$10,000–$30,000
$8,000–$20,000
$3,000–$8,000
Call 727-888-6161 for a project-specific estimate.
For detailed cost breakdowns, see our kitchen remodel cost guide and our bathroom remodel cost guide, both written for St. Petersburg homeowners.
What sets us apart for cottage renovation in Old Southeast.
20+ W-2 finish carpenters on Revolution’s payroll who match original trim profiles, integrate new work with old-growth hardwood floors, and handle the custom cottage details that define Old Southeast homes.
Old cottages hide scope. When you open a century-old wall and find cast iron failure or undersized electrical, it shows up in your weekly budget report that same week. No renegotiation, no padded contingency.
We rebuilt a 100-year-old wood single-family home in Old Southeast that multiple contractors said should be torn down. The whole-house historic remodel was recognized by Preserve the Burg. We know Key West cottage construction, pier-and-beam foundations, the Hexagon Block Sidewalk Preservation overlay, and the Artist Enclave designation that defines this neighborhood.
Design, engineering, permits, and construction — one team. Critical for Old Southeast projects where structural changes to Key West cottages require coordination between architect, engineer, and builder.
"We had multiple contractors tell us that our 100-year-old bungalow in Old Southeast should be torn down instead of remodeled. Revolution worked with us on an extensive plan to rebuild structural components and remodel the entire house. The project was recognized by Preserve the Burg."Verified Review
Three things define renovation here: the housing vintage (1920s through 1940s Key West cottages and Craftsman bungalows with 80 to 100-year-old infrastructure), the Hexagon Block Sidewalk Preservation District (city-enforced protection during any work affecting the streetscape), and the cottage-scale floor plans that require structural engineering to open up without losing the home’s character. Add the Artist Enclave designation, which means your neighbor may be running a studio or gallery next door, and you need a contractor who can manage both the construction and the community context. We have run this kind of work in Old Southeast, Old Northeast, Roser Park, and Kenwood and were recognized by Preserve the Burg for a whole-house historic remodel.
Old Southeast carries two city-designated overlays but is not a Local Historic District in the same sense as Granada Terrace (designated 1988) or Historic Kenwood (designated 2003). The two overlays are the Hexagon Block Sidewalk Preservation District (protecting the colored hex-block pavers and streetscape) and the Artist Enclave designation (one of two in the city, the other being Historic Kenwood). Neither overlay requires a Certificate of Appropriateness for changes to your home’s interior or building structure. Standard City of St. Petersburg building permits apply, and the National Register of Historic Places lists Old Southeast properties without imposing the same review-board layer as a Local Historic District. Per Jeremy Wharton, owners considering work that affects the sidewalk, driveway approach, or front-yard hardscape should plan for hex-block protection and document the existing condition before work begins.
It depends on scope and what’s behind the walls — and at 80–100 years old, we can predict it: cast iron drains ($10K–$30K to replace), panel upgrades ($3K–$8K), and structural work for open-concept conversions ($8K–$20K). A kitchen remodel in a 1920s cottage starts around $45K–$65K including infrastructure. Bathroom work is similar in that the plumbing assessment comes with the territory. We price everything on Time & Materials — open book, weekly reports, every invoice visible.
During your next kitchen or bathroom remodel, when the walls and floors are already open. Cast iron DWV piping in Old Southeast homes is 80 to 100-plus years old, well past its 50 to 70-year expected life. The pier-and-beam foundations common in this neighborhood make access easier than slab homes. Trying to do cast iron replacement as a standalone project means opening and closing walls twice. Bundle it with your renovation and you save time, money, and disruption.
Per Jeremy Wharton: "Our most memorable historic project is the one that we won the award for. The house probably honestly should have been torn down, but we went through a historic remodel and basically rebuilt from the studs out a hundred-year-old wood single-family home. It ended up with some modern touches — we upgraded the windows — but we also maintained as much of the woodwork, things like the doors and the original framing, as possible so that it still has significant nods to the historical design intent when it was built in the early 1900s." Recognized by Preserve the Burg for that whole-house historic remodel. We have run cottage-renovation work in Old Southeast, Old Northeast, Roser Park, Historic Uptown, and Kenwood.
Award-recognized historic remodels, dual-track COA permitting, and 100-year-old cottage rebuilds.
Sibling neighborhood renovation guide — three COA review tracks, what's inside the walls, and cost drivers across St. Pete's pre-war housing stock.
Three cost tiers, why historic costs 25-40% more, and the tax incentives that offset it.
What every older home owner needs to know about cast iron drain replacement.
Detailed cost breakdown for St. Petersburg kitchen remodels.
Detailed cost breakdown for St. Petersburg bathroom remodels.
See all St. Petersburg neighborhoods we serve.
