A fan of Tim Burton’s 1990 classic? This one’s for you.
You know this house. Heck, with stories being written about it everywhere from Creative Loafing to TMZ to the New York Daily News, everyone on the planet probably knows this house.
Why all the attention for a 3BR/2B 1,432-sqft bungalow on 1774 Tinsmith Circle in Lutz? Sure, the price hike — from $230,000 to $699,900 in less than a year and a half — is a tad eyebrow-raising, but who hasn’t heard similar stories about our head-shakingly hot real estate market?
No, it’s the stories this house has to tell, and is still telling, that have caught the world’s imagination. It’s a landmark in the work of director Tim Burton. He chose it as a location for one of his most acclaimed films, 1990’s sweetly bizarre romance Edward Scissorhands, in which an inventor almost succeeds in manufacturing a human but doesn’t get to the hands part, leaving his creation (Johnny Depp) with digits that are useful tools for barbecuing, landscaping and hair-cutting but kind of dangerous when it comes to expressing affection.
Burton had the homes on Tinsmith and environs painted in 1960s pastels, a world that that went from suburban bland to Scissortastic as Edward transformed the shrubbery and the neighbors’ lives while living with the Boggs family (including Dianne Wiest as the Avon lady who takes him in and a blonde Winona Ryder as her daughter and Edward’s eventual love interest).
The owners of the “Boggs house,” Joey and Sharon Licalzi, turned it into a museum of the movie after buying it in 2020. The purchase was a nostalgic moment for Joey — he was working as a dishwasher for a local Denny’s at the time of the filming, and a producer enlisted him to wash dishes for the movie’s craft services department. After moving in, he began collecting Scissorhands memorabilia from fans around the world, and crucially, as the Tampa Bay Times reported, from the movie’s prop master. Eventually the Licalzis had amassed enough of a collection to open their home as the free-admission Scissorland.
Now, in need of more space, they’re ceding the house/museum to the next occupant — who will be someone who a) can afford the $699,900 asking price and b) is a BIG Edward Scissorhands/Johnny Depp/Tim Burton fan. There’s no guarantee that a new owner will maintain the collection and the overall vibe, which includes replicas of the mushroom-pattered wallpaper in the Boggs’s kitchen and Edwardian topiaries created by Joey himself. But so far, says Realtor Megan Hartnell of Century 21 Affiliated, “No one has expressed an interest in separating the house from the memorabilia yet.”
The possibility remains that someone might put in that type of an offer. But, as Hartnell adds, “The price of the house rose in value tremendously because of the memorabilia included in the sale.” That, and the cost of living and comps in the area.
Hartnell says she’s received lots of interest since putting the home on the market late Thursday night, including a showing today (Monday). As the photos by Dylan Todd make clear, the house and its collection are a lot. But think of the parties — especially the barbecues!
