A home that for nearly three decade served as a destination for the local LGBT community of Manatee and Sarasota counties was lost to foreclosure this month, as owners Jon Odom and Michael Twiss turned the keys over to their mortgage company.
The couple, who moved into the iconic purple home overlooking the Manatee River,
According to a story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune, Odom and Twiss had stopped paying their $260,000 mortgage in the summer of 2008, after Odom’s screen and pool cage business collapsed along with the region’s housing market.
Odom once worked under the stage name of “Miss Grace” at Harrah's in Reno and told the paper that the “purple palace” had been a haven for friends with HIV and AIDS and single men who enjoyed group living.
The long-time couple moved into the home in 1984 and purchased it four years later for $79,000, according to county records. The couple refinanced the home seven times as the home increased in value. Just after Thanksgiving 2011, the pair learned the bank had won judgment on the house.
