The Jack Kerouac House In St. Pete Has Changed Owners; What's Up? – St. Pete, FL Patch

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Confusion and nostalgia surrounds the house in St. Petersburg once owned by Beat movement writer Jack Kerouac. The residence was put up for sale last summer, bought shortly after it was listed, then went back on the market in October and purchased in November.
Kerouac — the legendary author whose notable works include “On the Road,” “The Dharma Bums,” and “Big Sur” — is beloved by writers and poets more than 5o years after his death in 1969 at St. Anthony’s Hospital. He lived in the house from 1966 to 1969.
A part of the Beat Generation and a lover of jazz music, Kerouac wrote the play, “Beat Generation,” based on figures such as himself, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg. The play premiered long after his death in 2012 in his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, according to Rolling Stone.
The Friends of Jack Kerouac, formerly the Friends of Jack Kerouac House, was founded in 2013 with hopes of purchasing the house in 2020. But that didn’t pan out.
Stella Sampas, Jack’s third wife, lived in the house until her death in 1990, James Hartzell, president of the Friends of Jack Kerouac, told Patch. It remained vacant until the new owners recently rented it to a writer.

“The big goal with our group for the property when we had a lease on it, was just to keep people from breaking into it,” Hartzell said.
From 2013 to 2015 the house had a brief stint of caregivers, then John Sampas, Kerouac’s brother-in-law, took away the keys to the house. The house lacked care for about two years until Sampas died in 2017. His son, John Sampas Jr., inherited the property following his father’s death.
See Also: St. Pete Bar Frequented By Jack Kerouac Celebrates 50 Years
The Friends of Jack Kerouac signed a two-year lease in the summer of 2018 with the younger Sampas, and the group agreed to help take care of the utilities. Hartzell said he would mow the lawn so the city of St. Petersburg wouldn’t flag it and fine the owner.

Kerouac’s house at 5169 10th Avenue N, needed work including termite treatment and a new roof. A renovation estimate between $40,000 and $100,00 was given to the group.
No matter the cost to fix up the house, the group wanted to fully own it to preserve Kerouac’s memory with house tours, poetry events in the yard, readings in the driveway and a writer’s retreat.
“We started negotiating with the son, and we thought we had agreed upon the sell price of the house as the appraised value,” Hartzell said. “But he wanted $300,00 for the house, and ultimately sold to Flip Side LLC for $220,000. And then Ken and Gina Burchenal bought it for $350,000 in November.”
The house appraised at $140,00 in October of 2019, Hartzell said.
Flip Side LLC did some restoration work to the house last summer before selling it to the Burchenals, Hartzell said. Ken Burchenal is a retired literary professor at a Texas college, and grew up in the Pinellas County area.
“It was really a blessing in disguise, because having talked to the folks in Orlando who run a writing residency out of their Kerouac house, you really need a robust staff to be able to physically maintain that property,” Hartzell said. “It’s not a small house.”
As Hartzell was riding the route of a Jack Kerouac bike tour he is mapping out, he said it made him feel good to see it lived in, with plants and a porch bench.
“That feeling that it’s lived in and loved as opposed to being empty. So it’s nice that someone is living in there now, and it’s slowly being fixed up and beautified.”
He said they would love to be able to access the house to create a virtual tour so the current tenant and the Kerouac followers could reach a compromise. Fans of the writer can’t hang out on the property any longer or conduct poetry readings dedicated to Kerouac in the yard without permission from the tenant.
The Burchenals are on board with the group continuing to honor Kerouac at the house. The challenge is finding how to respect the tenant’s privacy while doing so. Hartzell said they have had Zoom meetings to discuss options.
Despite the house being unavailable to the public, the Friends of Jack Kerouac hold monthly events. Friday and Saturday, the group is having Kerouac Nights.
Some popular Jack Kerouac spots that he liked to hang out at in St. Petersburg include Haslam’s Bookstore, the Flamingo Bar and the Manhattan Casino. The last completed novel by Kerouac was “Satori in Paris,” according to Hartzell.
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For more information about the organization, visit its website or Facebook page.

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