Sealy Flats Founder Dead at 78

SAN ANGELO, TX – L. Rod Bridgman, a visionary behind the revitalization of downtown San Angelo, died at the age of 78 in Titusville, Florida, where he had retired in 2015.

Bridgman was an unconventional businessman. According to his family, he spent his earlier years in the jewelry wholesaling business and later in commodity trading. He was from Ponca City, Oklahoma.

After his first retirement in San Angelo, he purchased a dilapidated old building that had been condemned for 20 years and had long been known as a flop house since its construction in 1908. Bridgman and his wife, Dennise, finished restoring the old antebellum-style structure into a bed and breakfast in 2007 and named the business Sealy Flats, as it was known for featuring Sealy mattresses during the building's heyday near the turn of the 20th century.

Bridgman was a fan of the blues. He was among the founders of the San Angelo Blues Society and the Simply Texas Blues Festival towards the end of the 2000s. The festival attracted over 10,000 people to the section of S. Oakes Street near Sealy Flats. The City of San Angelo closed off the street for the all-day festival.

The success of the Blues Festival encouraged the Bridgmans to open what Rod called "The Cafe" next door to the bed and breakfast, and it also became known as Sealy Flats. It was a popular venue and featured live music six days a week—every day except Mondays. Popular blues musicians traveling between larger metro areas along the I-35 corridor to venues out west would stop through. The Bridgmans owned a third building downtown, the former city health department building located behind the bed and breakfast, and remodeled it into a place for bands to stay for free when touring. The price of a room was to perform on stage at The Cafe.

Bridgman had health trouble in 2013 and was forced to turn over the keys to The Cafe. Bentwood Country Club's director, Kevin Collins, an accomplished blues musician himself, gave a sincere effort to re-establish the magic of Sealy Flats. Collins was somewhat successful, but he too soon found that profitability in running a small, mostly outdoor music venue in downtown San Angelo was elusive and cut his losses after a year.

In 2007, Bridgman and the Blues Society brought Belzoni, Mississippi blues pianist Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins to the Cactus Hotel. Belzoni is located deep in the Mississippi Delta, the home of the blues genre. Pinetop performed alongside a banquet of McDonald's hamburgers served to paying patrons. It was an epic event for San Angelo. Perkins died at the age of 97 in 2011.

According to Bridgman's obituary, funeral services will be held Monday, July 22, 2024, at North Brevard Funeral Home, 1450 Norwood Ave, Titusville, Florida. A life celebration is planned to be held in San Angelo. Stay tuned.

For more about Sealy Flats, see the December 2013 story, "Why the Music Died at Sealy Flats."