Speaker:
As a kid growing up here, being his
son and my sister and my brother, you
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know, you didn't think anything of it.
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You know, Dad was doing his thing.
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But you look back now, the
long-lasting legacy of, of what he
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started when he came here, you know
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DeRosa Village, DeRosa Plaza,
DeRosa Fire Department.
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Like, who are the DeRosas?
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DeRosas
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Uh, Mom and Dad, uh, were born both in
Italy in the:
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immigrated to the United States in 1950.
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Uh, that's when I was born, in Brooklyn.
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So they made it to New York, which
most Italians did, families did,
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and we lived out on Long Island.
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And then, uh, Dad decided that it was
a point in time that he was tired with
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living in New York, migrated here to
Florida, and ended up in Crystal River.
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Citrus County was a real small county.
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28,000, I think, was the population.
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I think what drew him
here was the coastline.
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He- they, they liked, you
know, the part of the coast.
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They came from the Naples area.
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And the big attraction, I
think, was just the lifestyle.
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It was laid back, uh, reminded
them of, of parts of Italy
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Well, when we got here, he
bought a piece of dirt, you
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know, like a lot of people did.
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He bought a development, and that's
where the, the DeRosa name pops up
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in a lot of the subdivisions here.
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Uh, we're about two miles away
from the original subdivision
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from the firehouse here.
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And, um, dad bought that first clump,
sold it really quick 'cause he was
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selling it in our store in New York.
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And as he bought more, he developed more.
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Uh, we ended up with, uh, four different
subdivisions covering this, this part
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of the county, where you see the name
DeRosa Plaza, DeRosa Village, DeRosa
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Fire Department, the flea market.
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These were all things that,
you know, he, uh, he and our
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family developed over the years.
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But as you go out four ninety-five
coming out of town, there's a little
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sign on the road that says DeRosa
Village, and I got friends of mine
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that just laugh and go, "Wow."
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A-and here's the irony of it.
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Where we're sitting in the firehouse
here started out in a little shed
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in front of our stores there.
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We had a little strip
center, three stores.
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And we got the mini pump, and
we had no place to put it,
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and we had to build a shed.
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And we got everybody out
there, and we built the shed.
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And that was just kinda, kinda
the way the community was.
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Everyone jumped in and, and, and
shared the, in the experience
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of, uh, building this thing.
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And then as time went on, uh, the
fire district was put together,
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where Dad was on it as one of the
fire commissioners, and he said,
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"You're gonna be the fire chief."
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I go, "Okay, I don't know what I'm doing."
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You know, I ended up
going to fire college.
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It was, um, a pretty fascinating time.
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Uh, the deli, the deli was an Italian
deli back in nineteen seventy-four
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when Italian delis didn't exist.
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The closest was Tampa, uh,
Orlando, and we would import
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all of our stuff from New York.
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Boar's Head was the big meat, which now
is the popular one, but we were bringing
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in that and all the Italian specialties.
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And it was a, another,
um, crazy adventure.
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You know, uh, we saw a need, um, and we
filled it, just like this, this firehouse.
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I mean, uh, fire service was minimal.
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I think the most important
thing, it was community-driven.
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It was all volunteers.
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Now we've got paid people, which is great.
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Uh, it, it's, it's an asset
to the community, and it'll
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be here far beyond all of us.
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When, you know, we're gone,
it'll, it'll still be here.
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It'll be an asset to the community.
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If you ever wanted a 9,000 square
foot junk house, no, I mean a
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flea market, my dad built one.
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Uh, it's right next to the firehouse.
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Convenient.
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Everything right here at DeRosa Plaza.
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Uh, we built that as kind of a, a
place for people to sell stuff, and
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we decided to do indoors, and that
was my first commercial building I
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built after Seven Rivers Hospital.
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It's 9,000 square feet, and we put
little booths in there, and people
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would come in with their weekend stuff.
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And then as the years went on, vendors
would leave and Dad would buy their stuff,
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and at one point it was all his stuff.
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I go, "Dad, you got 9,000
square feet of stuff.
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What are you gonna do with this thing?"
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So it was a flea market.
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Uh, as time went on, you know, the
development, uh, my mom had gotten sick.
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She went to the hospital in St.
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Pete, Palms of Pasadena, and
had some procedures done there,
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and it went successfully.
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And the doctor, Willie and Dr.
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Tobias, who were the owners of the
hospital, came up to visit and they
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said, "Boy, we really like it up here."
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And so, unbeknownst to us, they bought
a piece of property to build a hospital.
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Dad found out about it, got involved
with it, but the problem was that
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at the time, it was really political
putting another hospital 'cause there
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was already a hospital here, and the
other hospital didn't want one here.
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So we had to go through what was
called a certificate of need.
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We had to justify to the health board
that there was a need for a hospital here.
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And we've got…
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We, we were going through pictures,
and I got a picture of my dad at
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the city council meeting in Crystal
River standing up saying, "We are
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gonna get this hospital here."
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And they approved it, so that's
how Seven Rivers got here.
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Had my mother not gotten sick, Dr.
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Willie Tobias would not come up here.
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Who knows what would've happened.
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And that was my first
real estate transaction.
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And then as time went on, you know,
Dad was ac- ac- real active with the
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educational foundation at the hospital.
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A lot of people got training, got their
tuition paid, so the hospital was pretty
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much his big, uh, project of his lifetime.
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And, a- and as he waned down in the
years, you know, he was still active.
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And then Fallen Heroes, the monument
behind, by Centennial Park for
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all the, the veterans who passed
away since the Civil War to the
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current Iraq War are on there.
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I think they've got 72 names on there.
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And, uh, there are five from the
Vietnam era, which was my era.
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But Fallen Heroes was his last
major project before he passed.
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And, um, you know, we
lost our mom before that.
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And, um, it, it's, it's just
been an interesting adventure.
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You know, as a kid growing up here, being
his son, and my sister and my brother,
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you know, you didn't think anything of it.
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You know, Dad was doing his thing.
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But you look back now, the
long lasting legacy of, of what
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he started when he came here.
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You know, he didn't know anybody here.
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He just came in, saw a place, an
opportunity, and fell in love with it.
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I'm Vinnie DeRosa.
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My family are the DeRosas, and now
you know the story behind the name.
