Dunedin Neighbors in A 'Mail' of Two Cities

The carved, wooden mermaid mailbox, painted in Key West pastels and glistening with Mardi Gras beads, isn't an oddity by itself.

Neither is the fish mailbox next door or the bull down the street.

Quirky, hand-crafted mailboxes sprout from nearly every lawn on Aberdeen Street in Dunedin. 

Ask Jenny English and she'll tell you it all began after painting lemons on the mailbox of her neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Lemon, as a late-night prank.

Unexpectedly, the joke turned into requests from others living on the street. One neighbor, an astronomer, had her mailbox painted with stars and planets. From there it became fashionable along the street to have an unusual mailbox.

"They thought 'oh, that's a good idea' and it kind of caught on," English said.

Some people hand crafted their own or had neighbors help out, others put up creative store-bought mailboxes.

In a handful of cases, during the height of the frenzy, the neighborhood would gather for a mailbox inauguration party. 

It was supposed to be a big surprise about what the new mailbox would be, said Isabelle Leibrecht, whose mailbox is modeled after the Rainbow Fish, a childrens' book character.

Eventually, nearby friends of those living on Aberdeen put up their own mailbox artworks.

On adjacent streets, boxes in the shape of an opossum, a ladybug and a rooster stand proudly.

"We have a very nice social life here on Aberdeen," Leibrecht said. "We get along very well."

Novelty mailboxes have expanded beyond Aberdeen and into the entire residential area, divided by Union Street between Clearwater and Dunedin.

In fact, many of the streets sandwiched between Edgewater Drive and Broadway hold at least one or two fantastical mailboxes and sometimes many more.

While those on Aberdeen claim to have started the neighborhood obsession, residents on nearby streets see it as a more laid back affair.

Crossing south into Clearwater, you'll find Granada Street which sports mailboxes in the shapes of fish, birds and, in one case, a fishing lure.

While Hank Williams had his mailbox up almost a decade ago, he does remember when the fad really began five or so years ago.

"It just spontaneously errupted," he said.

Williams' mailbox is in the shape of a fly fishing lure, fashioned many times larger than the flies he hand ties and uses to catch redfish, snook and speckled trout while wading or kayaking in nearby waters.

"I tie my own lures, why shouldn't I have made my own mailbox?" Williams said.

While fishing magazines sell similar boxes, Williams has a philosophy that if he can make it by hand then he'd rather do so. For fishing, this goes all the way down to building his own fly rods from strips of bamboo he cuts and sands himself.

The most striking element of Williams' lure mailbox is the giant hook he detailed with a barb, making sure both it and the hook's tip were dull enough to be safe.

Unlike the mailbox community a few blocks north, Williams has yet to connect with any of his neighbors over the pieces.

"You get some high-fives when you put one up, but there is no real organization," Williams said.

Heading back north into Dunedin, across Union Street and onto Citrus Avenue, perhaps the single most well-known mailbox of the neighborhood stands as the only notable piece within eyesight: the yellow submarine.

Lisa and Kevin Tighe noticed the recent increase in novelty mailboxes, but they wanted something special, something different from the hand-carved folksy feel that seems to be the area’s theme.

After spotting a mermaid mailbox in Safety Harbor that fit the bill, the Tighes asked the residents where the box had come from.

An architect living across the street had designed and built it.

"We knew we wanted it to be completely different and nautically themed," she said.

After hours of digging through Google images, she found inspiration.

"We weren't sure if the architect would be interested, but when we contacted him, he said he'd love to build it," Tighe said.

And, for $150, the mailbox came out even cooler than they expected with PVC periscopes, a moveable rudder and a spinning propeller.

The mailbox even holds a little secret, shared mostly between the Tighes and the mail carrier.

A psychedelic picture of the Beatles is splashed across the back, inside wall.

Arched over Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr, the words, "All you need is love."