Echoing the Pixar movie “Up,” a Florida man is refusing to sell his cherished family home even as it’s swallowed by a massive $600 million commercial development.
Orlando Capote told CBS4 News in Miami that his father bought the humble single-family home in 1989, after escaping Cuba and working double jobs to achieve his American dream.
“The house is my soul,” said Capote. “So what good is it to sell your soul for all the money in the world?”
The surrounding construction zone “is the most mega commercial development in Coral Gables history,” according to the local report.
Capote has refused offers of up to $900,000 for the two-bedroom, two-bathroom 1,300 square-feet home – as many as 60 offers over the past six years.
Capote’s immigrant father died in 2005. He then lost his mother last year, who asked before she died that the son not sell the “family treasure.”
“This was my father’s dream house. It took 20 years for him to find it,” Capote told the Miami Herald.
The feisty Floridian not only refuses to dishonor his mother’s wishes, he’s fighting back.
He says the city has broken numerous codes while trashing his property.
“You can see some of the trash that has already fallen on the side,” said Capote.
“Which would not happen if the building was actually 35 feet high or at least 50 feet away.”
Coral Gables officials claim the development has broken no laws or fire codes.
“The issues raised have been extensively reviewed and investigated,” they told the Miami Herald.
This post first appeared on Nypost.com
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