B.S. Robertson Buildings, 2219-2238 E 7th Ave

B.S. (Bob) Robertson was a Tampa businessman who owned King Drugstores and the White Way Café. In 1910, he constructed the first of what would become two adjoining buildings on Seventh Avenue in Ybor City. The date remains in the brickwork: “B.S. Robertson, 1910.”

A second building, immediately to the west, was added in 1923.

By about 1918, furniture was being sold from the property, although records from that period show few references to the business name. Like many commercial buildings of the era, the ground floor appears to have been used for business while portions of the second floor were residential. Records list people living at the address.

Around 1922, Charles Henry Kehoe opened the Kehoe Furniture and Transfer Company, selling both new and second-hand furniture. Kehoe was initially located at 2219 E. Seventh Avenue, across the street from the Robertson buildings. That property is now a vacant lot.

By 1925, Kehoe's address had changed to 2227–2229 E. Seventh Avenue, placing the business in the Robertson buildings. Kehoe Furniture would remain there for more than three decades.

In 1957, Kehoe sold the business, and Belarmino Cadrecha, a cigar factory worker, opened his furniture store there as a side business. Contemporary accounts aren't entirely consistent about its name. Some refer to Broadway Furniture Co., while others call it Furniture City. Whatever the name at the time, the furniture business became a multigenerational Cadrecha family operation.

In 1972, the family renamed it Design Interiors.

For years, the exterior of the old Robertson buildings looked rough, giving little indication of the expensive furnishings being sold inside. That changed in 2003, when brothers Bob and Bill Cadrecha spent about $150,000 restoring the old Kehoe property and returning much of its historic appearance.

The restoration did not reopen everything. The street-level windows in the 1923 portion were sealed, while about half of the original 1910 building occupied by Design Interiors still had exposed windows. The Cadrecha family closed up shop in 2019 and sold the building.

Another major rehabilitation of the structures began around 2020. The work included new windows and extensive repointing and restoration of the brick exterior.

Then came another setback.

In 2023, as the renovation neared completion, a major fire broke out on the property. The damage was repaired, and the buildings survived.

In 2024, Saddlebags of Florida, a country-themed bar and nightclub, opened in the restored complex with a large dance floor, mechanical bull, and stage. Its run was short. Saddlebags closed in late 2025.

The buildings entered yet another chapter in August 2026, when Chef Victor M. Lopez, formerly of Barcelona Wine Bar, executive chef Osyamil Milian, and members of their families opened D'Rose Gastrobar.

More than a century after B.S. Robertson put his name and the date 1910 into the brickwork, the buildings remain a prominent piece of Ybor City's commercial history.

Perhaps the best reminder of that history isn't the new restaurant or the restored windows. It's the faded Furniture City ghost sign still visible on the east end of the building—a surviving advertisement from an Ybor City business that occupied the property for many years and a beautiful reminder of the many lives these buildings have had.

 © Chip Weiner. All rights reserved