Caroline Bryant
Features Editor
“What role does a home play in the life and legacy of a city? Homes are the chapters in our city’s history book and each owner is the author of its story.”
This is how the broker and owner of PWH Realty Paige Wagner opened the Lakeland-based documentary, The People Who Live There.
Wagner’s passion for historic homes arose after only living in them. So when the Indialantic, Fla. native moved to Lakeland in 2012 with her soon-to-be husband, Chase Wagner, it felt like she woke up in heaven.
Now promoted to the St. Peter of housing, P. Wagner opened the gates to the historic home community by holding an annual open house event for historic homes she previously sold. Locals would make it a day event, nibbling on their half-eaten pastry from Born & Bread Bakehouse as they traveled through the rooms.
But after four years of successful tours, COVID-19 brought the event Lakelanders longed for to a pause. When 2021 rolled around, P. Wagner was still wary of hosting hundreds of people in one home. She decided to create a film about the houses instead.
She pitched the idea to write a “love letter to Lakeland and its historic homes” to The Collection Media, run by Southeastern University graduates Connor O’Brien and Campbell Rice. Both raised in Lakeland, the two were honored to take on the project in February 2021.
Photo courtesy of Paige Wagner | Wagner filming for the documentary.
And a love letter to Lakeland was exactly what they made.
While Rice would go off exploring the city through the lens of his camera, O’Brien would spend hours sifting through documents at a Lakeland archive center. They’d talk with local officials and historical tour guide Stacy Smith to make sure they were putting together every piece of Lakeland’s puzzle.
Alongside them, P. Wagner would pick out a wide array of homes big and small built in the late 1800s through the early-to-mid 1900s. She strayed away from the popular homes, as she felt they didn’t best represent all of Lakeland. Luckily, she and The Collection Media knew most of the homeowners of the houses selected, so their interviews flowed more naturally.
One participant, in particular, was ardent to share his story with no prior knowledge of the project.
O’Brien and Rice had heard of the infamous pink (which P. Wagner sadly stated is now green) Victorian house owned by Chris Satterfield by a teller while they were visiting the bank. They decided to drive by on their way home to shoot B-Roll, or back-up footage, for the film. Satterfield noticed them from their garage and questioned their camera. Once they told him about the documentary, he eagerly invited them inside.
Sitting on a white button-back chair in a spacious jungle green room, Satterfield echoed what O’Brien argued was “the most iconic” line of the film: “We don’t live long enough to own anything. We’re not homeowners, we’re caretakers. Our home is going to be here in the past when we are out, so it’s kind of arrogant to say we own anything.”
Labeling every homeowner as a caretaker emphasizes the value of the homeowner. A home can not change by itself. A home can not be a home by itself. It is dependent on the people that live in it to be these things.
“Everyone is going to have a different impact in life, everyone has different little roles in life, but I think home kind of grounds all of us and levels the playing field where we all need a home,” P. Wagner said. “It doesn’t matter how much money you make, how successful you are, or if the fact that you don’t—you just maybe rent an apartment—but we all need a home. I think keeping the value of that is what connects a city.”
O’Brien also said his line gifts a responsibility to the homeowner: “to make their city what they want it to be” through their home.
These refurbished homes—whether it be a 70s bungalow or a Spanish casita like P. Wagner’s first home—have successfully contributed to Lakeland’s quirky, fun and vibrant aesthetic. As musician Wayne McCarty said in the film, Lakeland is the place for creatives in Polk County.
Rice made sure to illustrate that aesthetic through his cinematography.
“Lakeland and a lot of the historic homes that have been remodeled have a very quirky, fun, vibrant character to them, so we wanted the whole film to feel that way,” Rice said. “Very colorful, whimsical, not taking it too seriously. I think that we carried that out very well trying to really capture the vibe of Lakeland.”
They were so successful in hyping up the city that the biggest feedback they received from their test screening in Nashville was that viewers couldn’t tell if they were trying to convince them to move to Lakeland or to love their town.
Lakeland resident Aaron Evans is the perfect example of both answers to the question.
At the film’s premiere in October 2021 at Polk Theatre, Evans approached Rice after the showing was over, crying. The moment being their first meeting, Evans disclosed that he was about to move to Tampa. Yet, the film was so powerful to him that he decided to cancel his move and open up his art business. He hugged Rice and walked away.
Many other residents expressed how eye-opening and emotional the film was to them. They reciprocated the same feelings the love letter expressed to them.
The premiere was so successful that they decided to hold another show in November. Their film has also been featured in the St. Petersburg, Central Florida, Fort Myers, and Austin film festivals, earning the Audience’s Choice award in Austin.
Now available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime, the documentary’s number of streams is rising. While P. Wagner said it may be locals sending the film to family members saying ‘watch this, I live here,’ she’s excited to see the film’s growth. Rice agreed.
“We made it about Lakeland, for Lakeland, without even thinking it would be this big,”
Rice said. “We weren’t expecting it. But it’s really cool that this was an outcome and can be something big.”
The documentary has become so big that they’re releasing The People Who Live There Art Book, featuring photos of all the different historic homes in Lakeland. It’s even expanding into a film series. While locations aren’t set in stone, O’Brien hopes to explore cities like Boston, Copenhagen and Singapore.
“Empathy is the biggest driving force of our production,” O’Brien said. “Every story comes from a place of wanting to portray the truth of what people and who people are in these places and we want to create empathetic storytelling. That’s what we do.”
No matter how many letters they hand out, they’ll never forget their first love: Lakeland.
