Angela Sue Lucas booked a two-day getaway for her 40th birthday in July 2020 at Club DLuxx, an Airbnb run by Dennis Peter Weisse in North Fort Myers, Fla. Or, so she thought.
“I refused her reservation,” said Mr. Weisse, 70, who was nicknamed DLuxx by a high school buddy. “I don’t allow guests to throw parties at my home,” he told her on the Airbnb app suspecting that was what she was up to. “I have other guests staying at Club DLuxx and it wouldn’t be fair.” The house is Mr. Weisse’s home, out of which he rents two rooms.
The next day, Ms. Lucas, 43, who goes by Angie, set him straight.
“I was excited about my birthday staycation,” replied Ms. Lucas, who was looking for a quiet solo escape in early pandemic times. She was thrilled that it featured a pool and was only 20 minutes from Lehigh Acres, Fla., where she was then living.
“I am very quiet and would not wish to cause harm or annoyance,” she said, adding that she accepted his decision, and wished him “a happy summer.”
Her note, along with her photo on the app, catapulted him into sending an apology 11 minutes later.
“OMG, I’m so sorry,” he said, explaining that a previous party thrower racked up $900 in damages. “I will welcome you with open arms,” he wrote. “Your host, I hope, Dennis.”
A few more exchanges went nowhere: “I was really nervous about doing anything wrong,” she said. So he called her.
“I talked her into staying,” said Mr. Weisse, who promised her a special birthday breakfast: “My signature Denver omelet on steroids.”
Ms. Lucas found the key under the mat when she arrived at Club DLuxx on July 8, the afternoon before her birthday. Mr. Weisse would be returning home from visiting his 33-year-old son in Colorado later that day. (His other son died in 2017.)
His friends, who had minded the Airbnb in his absence, not only left the key for her, but also decorated the kitchen to his specifications: balloons, streamers, flowers, tequila and a birthday card. “It was pretty amazing,” she said.
She quickly changed into her bathing suit, and headed to the pool. “I wish I could live here,” she recalled thinking as she floated on a raft in the L-shaped pool with a floating bar. “It was such a nice respite from my everyday life.”
Until the pandemic hit, Ms. Lucas, originally from Westfield, Pa., had worked as a nanny in Florida. She had moved to Tampa with her father when she was 13 and attended Edison State College, now Florida SouthWestern State College, in Fort Myers.
Mr. Weisse got home around 10 p.m. and welcomed her. They chatted about 20 minutes over Corona beers before turning in. The next morning, as promised, he served her a birthday breakfast, along with mimosas, in the lanai by the pool. They then swam the day away.
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“She knew every song I knew,” said Mr. Weisse, who grew up in Aurora, Ill., and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physical education from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He retired as a UPS driver in Laguna Hills, Calif.
“Her playlist was my playlist,” Mr. Weisse said. “Snoop Dogg songs. Dr. Dre. All damn day we were singing.”
That afternoon they had a first kiss, followed by a candlelit dinner later, with Veuve Clicquot, in the lanai.
“I didn’t notice an age difference,” she said. “We had a lot of things in common.”
Mr. Weisse described their second day together as a carbon copy of the first, even better. “We were having a ball, laughing and carrying on like a couple of school kids.”
As her departure approached, he invited her to stay longer, indefinitely. She did.
“We spent every single day together,” said Ms. Lucas, who soon began helping him around the Airbnb. She now also works as a server at Pizza Connection, an Italian restaurant, in North Fort Myers.
On July 18, they had their first official date — outdoor drinks at Anthony’s on the BLVD, an Italian seafood restaurant now closed in Cape Coral, Fla. “I found my friend,” he said. “We never stopped laughing.”
Mr. Weisse, whose previous two marriages ended in divorce, told Ms. Lucas from the get-go that he would not get married again. In September, about a week after she moved her stuff into the Airbnb, he changed his tune.
“If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it,” he said, quoting Beyoncé.
On Sept. 11, 2020, two months and three days after they met, he got down on one knee and presented her with a diamond engagement ring, around sunset in front of Chapel by the Sea on Captiva Island.
“I have a bad knee,” he said with a laugh. “I sucked it up for Angie.”
They postponed their original January 2021 wedding date after Ms. Lucas’s mother died, and Mr. Weisse had an emergency knee replacement.
“Life gets in the way sometimes,” said Ms. Lucas, adding Mr. Weisse has met many friends and family and, despite the age difference, “everyone’s OK with it.”
“He’s a lovable guy,” she said.
On Feb. 14, Patricia Slater, a Florida notary public, officiated on a secluded beach on Sanibel Island, Fla., before the two of them, and a photographer.
“If she were 60 it wouldn’t matter,” Mr. Weisse said. “If she were 30 it wouldn’t matter. She’s Angie.”
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