13 minute read
BUILT ON LOVE
For close to two years, their home and day-to-day life have been under construction. But Jana Beckwith and Chris Doerger are no strangers to the beauty of a slow build.
Story: Rheya Tanner Photography: Matt Tullo
That fateful afternoon in 2019 seemed like any other. Jana Beckwith returned home from an afternoon of errands to find something strange: a puddle. “My first thought was, ‘Huh, one of the dogs had an accident,’” she says. “Until I went into the kitchen.”
Disaster struck. A flood had devastated their kitchen and was overtaking the surrounding rooms. “It was absolutely everywhere. The dogs were splashing in it,” says Jana. “And Chris was out of town, of course, so I’m just like, ‘crap!’”
The culprit of the washout? A tiny plastic cap on the toilet had split and started spraying like a rogue fire hose. “When I opened the door, it got me right in the face,” says Jana.
“We didn’t have to replace the bathroom floor, since it was ceramic,” says Jana’s wife, Chris Doerger. “We did, however, have to replace the ceiling, because that’s where the water was spraying.”
But the ceiling was only the beginning. The long list of damages included the drywall, the laminate flooring, and virtually the entire kitchen. “All the appliances and bottom cabinets flooded, so we had to replace them,” says Jana. “And when you need new bottom cabinets, you need new top cabinets, too. Before you know it, you’ve got a new kitchen.”
Little did Chris and Jana know, though, this mishap was more than an isolated incident; it was the first in a series of changes to their
home and their lives. “This all happened nearly around the time that my mother came,” says Chris.
In the fall of that year, Cathy had to move from Cincinnati, Ohio, to live with her daughter and daughter-in-law. “She has more friends than I do,” says Chris.“Cincinnati is one of those cities that people don’t leave.”
To better accommodate her, the family agreed to—you guessed it— some home renovating. “The two agreements we made,” says Chris, “were that we would redo one side of the house into an in-law suite, and that we would put a pool in.”
Nearly two years after that tragic summer afternoon, the Tierra Verde house is still a construction zone. But no one knows better than Jana and Chris that a little patience and a little spontaneity can build up to a better outcome than anyone expected.
A Slow Build
The two first crossed paths in 2008, thanks to a mutual friend. “Or a friend of a friend,” says Chris. “It was a real Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon situation.”
“I was having a 45th birthday bash,” says Jana. “My friend asked if she could invite someone, and that someone was Chris.”
As far as first impressions go, there wasn’t much of one, since the two barely interacted that day. “There are photos of both of us there, but there were nearly 50 people at that party,” says Jana.
Months later, that same mutual friend would unite them again. “She started hosting these happy hours to get her friends together,” says Chris. “So after that, we started seeing each other more.”
“Sometimes it would only be me, her, and that friend,” adds Jana. “Eventually, I started coming to your house just to hang out.”
“I lived in a convenient spot, and I worked strange hours because of the hospital,” says Chris. “It was pretty common for me to be home on, like, a Wednesday afternoon. So it was easy for her to stop by.”
“I was newly single, and she had been single a while,” says Jana. “I wasn’t really looking for a relationship; just someone to talk to.”
“It was a slow burn,” says Chris. “We met at the party, then months went by. We met at happy hours, and some more months went by.”
Until one day—at a different birthday party—the construction period was complete. “That’s finally when we were both like, ‘hey, do you want to go out?’” says Jana. “I think once we actually said it out loud, that neither of us wanted to see anybody else, we were both like, ‘What just happened?’ It felt like I was already married.”
The two have been together for 12 years now, and have been married for six. “We got married on our anniversary, so we’d never forget it,” says Jana.
Everything Built into One
“I used to live in Winter Garden myself years ago, back in 2005, and I loved it,” says Jana. “I always wanted to go back, and I kept hounding Chris about it.”
Before moving to Lake Cove Pointe, Chris and Jana lived on the east side of town, closer to Orlando International Airport. “I travel for my job, so being close to the airport was convenient,” says Chris. “But eventually I realized, I’m not home enough to care where we live. It’s not really fair if I say I don’t want to live in Winter Garden, but then I’m always gone anyway.”
Though Jana was a former resident, she had no idea that Lake Cove Pointe existed. “It was like a secret hideaway,” she says.
Chris was out of town at the time, so much of the house hunting was done by Jana. “The funny thing is, this is the first house Jana
saw,” says Chris. “And she calls me and says, ‘I found it.’ So of course, I pull the, ‘No, there’s no way, we need to see a bunch more houses.’ So she saw a bunch more houses, and guess what? We just ended up with this one anyway.”
“You can tell when it’s got a good base,” says Jana. “It had everything I wanted.”
Her top want was being walking distance to downtown. “And while some of the other houses were cleaner or newer, they weren’t close,” says Chris. “So, despite my stubborn ass stopping it from happening right away, it turned out.”
What drew them to the neighborhood was the neighborly spirit. “At our last subdivision, everybody came home, went in their garages, and shut the doors,” says Jana. “We didn't meet our neighbors until we put the house up for sale. We lived there for five years.”
“While here at Lake Cove Pointe, Dave Campbell walked across the street to us when we were just looking at the house,” adds Chris. “We hadn’t even bought it yet.”
“He came over and said, ‘I want you to know it’s a great neighborhood and you’ll love it here,’” says Jana. “It’s amazing how many people talk to us.”
The three make great use of that proximity to downtown when they can. “Jana and Cathy have a standing date on Saturdays where they go to the Farmer’s Market and the Moon Cricket Grill,” says Chris.
“We’re at the point where the waitresses go, ‘All right, sweet tea and Sprite?’” adds Jana.
But the house favorite is a Farmer’s Market staple: Donevette’s Confections. “It’s a little no-frills booth—they might be one of the only minority vendors there—and they have cookies the size of your head,” says Chris. “So now every week we go down there and get cookies.”
“I’m on the LCP welcoming committee now,” says Jana, “and I just welcomed our newest family, the Sorensons, by bringing them some of those cookies.”
Jana is an avid runner and biker, so she makes the most of the area trails, and then some. “I run the whole downtown area,” she says. “I go all the way to Story Road, up and down all the streets that have sidewalks.”
“When we first met, I did run with her occasionally,” says Chris. “And I think when I finally stopped, she was like ,‘Oh, thank God.’”
Jana laughs. “It’s easier to just run on my own. I can go at my own pace, listen to music.”
“And she doesn’t have to hear me complain!” adds Chris.
Built from Better Stuff
Jana worked for the Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) for 27 years. “I started out as a meter reader, then went to cut-on and cutoff,” she says. “Then I became a supervisor and, eventually, I was a collections field investigator, which is a whole other thing.”
Utilities management isn’t exactly a cushy profession. “I was bit by a dog five times,” Jana says. “And sometimes, when you walk behind places to shut off the power, people are there. And they’re angry. It occurs to you that you could just disappear and it would be a while before people would realize you were gone.”
At the ripe old age of 52, Jana happily retired. “I wondered how I had time to do all this stuff when I was working!” she says. “Especially once the construction started, it was beneficial that I was here all the time.”
FAST FACTS
LCP residents since: 2016 Married for: 6 years Pets: Two terrier mixes, Dobby and Zoey; and two cats, Sanchez and the Baby Shark Hobbies: Chris scuba dives; Jana sings karaoke; Mom colors in adult coloring books. Most used phrase in the house: Zoey, no! Fave local restaurant: Chris, Downtown Deli; Jana and Mom, ice cream from Scoops One adjective to describe us: Modern One thing we want to do more: Swimming when the pool is done! One thing we want to do less: Eating, so we can fit into our swimsuits Next on our improvement list: Renovating Mom's bedroom expansion We are proudest of: Chris, because she helps so many people with limb loss live the most normal lives possible We are looking forward to: Construction being over
PET SANCTUARY
As self-professed animal lovers, Chris and Jana have rescued four pets—and all of them kind-of-sort-of by accident. ”Zoey is the only one that was my fault,” says Chris. Zoey, a 4-year-old terrier mix (pictured above), is one of two dogs they've rescued.
The other is a 14-year-old mix named Dobby. ”When I first saw him, I was really drawn to him,” says Jana of her oldest pooch. ”A month later, I was walking by the rescue and he was still there."
In addition to dogs, they have also rescued two cats. The first, Sanchez, is one Jana found while working at OUC. The other, though, is a longer story. “About a year ago, there was a post on our Facebook group about a stray cat,” says Chris. “We took her in with the intention of finding her owners. Well, we tried like hell and never found anything.”
Her gray coat and curious nature earned her her name: The Baby Shark (pictured on the opposite page). “She’s got such a personality,” says Jana. “We find her in all sorts of places around the house, which we try to document.”
Chris’s career as a physical therapist (PT) also has to do with construction, albeit of a more medical persuasion. “I became particularly interested in limb loss patients,” she says. “I think it was the part where you get to build things. As a PT, you already know a lot about muscles and joints. But now there's this mechanical thing that has to somehow be a part of their body.”
So, she returned to school for her prosthetics degree. “I worked in the field for a while, but eventually ended up working for a manufacturer. Someone’s got to make the carbon feet, after all.”
Now, Chris provides clinical support to doctors using her prosthetics. “Say, for example, a prosthetist in Georgia is fitting this fancy microprocessor knee for the first time. So they call and ask me to be there for the fitting, since I know the ins and outs of this particular prosthetic,” she says. “It’s great because, even though it’s technically a sales position, there’s always a patient there. So I get my patient care fix, and I get to hear the interesting stories they have to tell.”
Built to Last
“It’s hard to say how things have changed since my mom moved in,” says Chris. “Sure, there’s another person in the house, so you’re shopping more, cooking more, all that stuff. But she moved in right before COVID. So it’s hard to see which changes were from her moving in and which weren't. We can’t say, ‘Oh, our social life is totally kinked,' because we aren’t going out.”
There have been a few small adjustments. “If one of us is out, we coordinate so that the other is home,” says Jana. “If both of us are out, we keep it short. And ob-
viously, we have this big construction project to make the home more accommodating to her.”
Cathy is a socialite by nature, so the family is ready for the world to get back to normal. “We look forward to finding community activities for her to be engaged in soon, but those aren’t around right now,” says Chris. “So we stay busy with chores and entertainment around the house.”
That entertainment consists of coloring books, board games, and music biopics. “We put that Garth Brooks documentary from Netflix on, and she was riveted,” says Chris. “Same with the Dolly Parton one. We play Yahtzee, and we have an old deck of Uno cards.”
The three are ready for the construction to finally end. “We’re gonna be stylin’ when all this is done,” says Chris. "We’ll have the pool in the summertime. Mom will have her own space. Everything will be organized. My office won’t look like a storage space.”
Looking back, Chris and Jana can see how neatly it all happened to fall into place. “I realize now how fortunate it all was,” says Chris. "Mom moved in in November 2019, and then a couple months later, there was a national lockdown. I can’t imagine how much harder it would have been to handle the logistics of getting her moved, or worse, if she was stuck there. We dodged a huge bullet.”
The word she uses to describe it is serendipity. “And then when Jana retired, it was perfect for when Mom moved in, since she could be home with her,” says Chris.
“I’d gone back on contract once or twice to help with some projects,” says Jana. “But then I decided not to extend my last one, which worked out, because that was right when her mother moved in.”
“When you say you have to take the good with the bad, it sounds cliché,” says Chris. “But looking back, we’ve had this series of events that at first, were like, ‘oh crap.’ But they always worked out. Even the flood. It was just serendipity.”
