HAZELTON, N.D. — A tiny town’s promise of cash and free land lured only one family from out of state. Now, Michael and Jeanette Tristani and their twins want to move back to Florida.
The Tristanis moved to the town of about 240 people four years ago to escape Miami’s urban problems. Michael Tristani says he was prepared for bitter winters but not the small-town drama.
Town promoters provided a free lot for his house and $15,000 in cash, but the family felt treated like outsiders. Michael Tristani arrived wearing gold necklaces and a Rolex and driving a Lexus. He was as foreign as a flamingo in a place where pickups, farm caps and flannel shirts reign. “People thought I was a drug dealer,” he said.
Tristani, a former grocery worker, and his wife, a former real-estate agent, opened a bistro and coffee shop. But within weeks, the couple petitioned for a restraining order against the owners of another coffee shop, alleging that one of them drove by their house yelling obscenities and threatened to damage their home.
After the bistro failed, Michael Tristani, 42, said he began buying old houses in Bismarck, fixing them up and reselling them. Jeanette, 44, lost her job at a call center in nearby Linton.
These days, the Tristanis keep mostly to themselves while waiting for their house to sell.
And school officials worry about losing the 12-year-old Tristani twins as high school enrollment steadily declines.
