Cottage Life

Tie a kerchief under your chin because when you walk in, your jaw may drop. ‘’People either love it or hate it,’’ says Susan Jordan.

It is joyously, riotously colorful.

It is upliftingly, blissfully cheerful.

It is gloriously and meritoriously wonderful.

It is a Victoria Park bungalow built of Dade County pine, one of eight built around a court by Alfred G. Kuhn in 1926. There are 14 colors in the living room. Tigers burn phosphorescently bright on the kitchen cabinets. A metal sculptured siren shimmers and swims above the fireplace, kissing a fish.

Susan and Pat Jordan bought the pink cottage in 1992, and it is to be featured on the Victoria Park Home Tour next weekend.

The Jordans, both writers, moved to Fort Lauderdale from a small New England town. Pat had been in spring training with the Milwaukee Braves in 1960 and had covered baseball for Sports Illustrated in the late ’60s. He loved South Florida.

When they first moved here, they lived in an apartment complex, and a friend gave them a Haitian painting. They really disliked its depiction of fighting, but took it with them to the Victoria Park house. Finally, they decided to find someone who would want it, and Susan went to Katie Barr’s Fine Caribbean Art gallery in Delray Beach. When she was offered $1,200 for the artwork, she decided to trade.

Since then, they’ve been collecting Haitian art, which, Susan says, depicts people and animals “reaching for the sun.

‘’To us, the art is what life is about: full of striking colors, exuberance and peace,’’ she says. ‘There’s no violence in it. So we said, `Let’s surround ourselves with these brilliant colors and images. Let’s live in it.’ ‘’

The couple’s house has been designated historic and architecturally significant, and Susan helped snag historic designation for the seven other homes in 1997.

The bungalows are called Victoria Court, named for Kuhn’s daughter, and they lie within the neighborhood of Victoria Park, also named for Kuhn’s daughter.

A family named Wylie lived in the Jordans’ cottage for half a century. ‘’Mr. Wylie was a master carpenter and a Merchant Marine,’’ Susan says. “He added two rooms in 1938.’’

Those rooms are in the front of today’s house. One serves as Susan’s office. It’s turquoise and then some.

Some 30 windows open up all around the house, which is not insulated but does have central air. There’s an elephant in the kitchen, along with zebra, giraffes, cockatoos, lions and tigers, oh my. They have been charmingly painted by Haitian artist Louis Rosemond. They are surrounded by tones of apple green, mango, rose, butter yellow, pink and turquoise. Little hammered and painted fish float near the ceiling, while splashbacks are black and white tile and the floor is pine. The shade of orange was inspired by a papaya.

The bathroom features a footed tub, which was tiled over when the Jordans arrived. A door connecting the bath and bedroom had been covered with plywood, but that too was removed and the original restored.

‘’If I go away, when I come home, there’s a wall that’s a different color,’’ Pat says.

Sometimes Pat and Susan disagree on a color, but about 90 percent of the time they like the same thing, they say. And sometimes they sit and watch paint dry, just to make sure the color is perfect. A particular shade of rose ‘’came out whorehouse pink,’’ says Pat. That can of paint was rushed back to the store.

A gas fireplace of crenelated brick has been painted turquoise, orange, purple, black and white. The wall above was one area where the Jordans disagreed about the color. Susan wanted a creamy yellow; Pat favored mustard. Mustard proved right. In general, the calmer colors have been selected by Susan.

What was a front porch now is a family room, with large leather sofa. It’s here that Pat and Susan read the papers, watch TV.

Both the Jordans were English teachers and both now are authors. Pat has written 11 books, including nonfiction, novels and memoirs. He works every day on a manual typewriter; Susan then types his stories and books into a computer. (“Data transfer; I get paid.’’)

‘’Susan says I’m charging head-first into the 19th century,’’ he says.

Susan wrote a book about surviving breast cancer (she celebrated her 27th anniversary of being free from cancer recently) and is working on a book about dogs, as there are many here all the time.

Normally, the Jordans say, they guard their privacy but they have decided to open the cottage for the home tour because they are grateful for the Victoria Park Civic Association’s help in getting historic designation for Victoria Court.

The next item that the Jordans want to add to their bright cottage is not a piece of art but a 1950s turquoise refrigerator. Says Susan, “It’s the only color that can go there.’’

By Georgia Tasker of the Miami Herald