Comas of the Orlando Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Petersburg was the final home of the great Jack Kerouac,” she said, choking up.īarmore, who ran the nonprofit that cared for the house from 2013 to 2015, said it has stayed “virtually the same as in 1969.” Burchenal intends to pursue national historic landmark designation for the house next. Petersburg’s history, and that they chose to celebrate that, designate that and join with so many of us who are proud to say that St. “You can imagine my joy when I heard that the folks who had purchased it appreciated and respected that they were now owners of a piece of St. The new owner restored the house, and the Burchenals purchased it.Ĭouncil member Gina Driscoll said that when she first heard the house had been sold, she was worried. Shen-Sampas instead sold the house in 2020 for $220,000 to Flip Side, a company that specializes in flipping homes. The group, which hoped to turn it into a writer’s retreat, failed to raise the funds by his deadline. In 2017, Sampas died and passed the home to his son, John Shen-Sampas, who offered it to the local nonprofit for $300,000. While negotiations between Sampas and the group stalled, the place fell into disrepair as Kerouac fans broke in to hold parties and seances.

Then Sampas took away their keys but offered to sell the home to the nonprofit for $500,000. For two years, members worked to restore the house and pursued historic landmark designation. In 2013, a local nonprofit stepped in as the home’s caretakers. John Sampas, brother of Stella Kerouac, was deeded the home in 1990 after her death. The house has passed through multiple hands since then. He died at 47 from liver cirrhosis at St. Petersburg in 1964 with his mother and his third wife, Stella. The Orlando home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. “He came to the house as a penniless wanderer, sort of seen as something of a joke,” said Bob Kealing, a WESH-TV reporter and author of “Kerouac in Florida: Where the Road Ends” (2004). But nearly overnight, the 35-year-old caught the literary world’s attention with the publication of “On the Road.” Since then the largely autobiographical story of a road trip across the United States and Mexico has sold millions of copies and become known as a defining work of the Beat Generation.

Kerouac was unknown and nearly broke when he arrived in Orlando that same year to live near his mother and sister. Kerouac was a renowned Beat Generation poet and novelist, made famous in the 1950s with his book “On The Road.” The small bungalow currently houses visting writers as part of the Jack Kerouac Writers In Residence program. The Jack Kerouac cottage in College Park, on March 26, 2013.

Kerouac jack on the road