Spotlight on The Ormond Beach Area
The Greater Ormond Beach Area and surrounding Volusia County features an unmatched blend of modern, well-planned communities situated amid a landscape of unspoiled natural beauty. Located on East Central Florida’s Atlantic coast, our area boasts outstanding year-round climate and a down-home flavor that defines how Florida living is meant to be.
It’s the perfect place to live, work and play. Area residents enjoy a low cost of living, affordable housing, efficient transportation, quality education, state-of-the-art health care facilities and an expanding business climate that promotes high-tech, clean industry. Our colleges and universities are recognized both nationally and internationally. Public and private schools are excellent and county growth is strategically planned and controlled.
You can enjoy a thriving cultural arts community, world-class sporting scene and a burgeoning business climate. Two major interstate highways and Daytona Beach International Airport provide residents and visitors alike easy access from our city to virtually any destination in the world.
Looking for a New Home? Visit our friends at:
Vanacore Homes, Inc
Quality New Home Construction Since 1958
Welcome to Clearwater Beach, Florida!
Home of pristine white sand beaches, clear gulf waters, warm sunshine, and plenty of hospitality.
Clearwater Beach, an island, and a corporate part of the City, is a beach community connected to the mainland by Memorial Causeway, a four-lane, toll-free drive stretching almost two miles across the Intracoastal Waterway.
Business on Clearwater Beach is mainly tourist oriented, with hotels, motels and gift shops. Many fine homes, apartments and condominiums offer pleasant, semi-tropical island accommodations to permanent residents and winter and summer visitors.
Clearwater offers a seemingly endless supply of sun and a mild and temperate climate. It is ideally situated on the Gulf of Mexico on Florida’s west coast, offering something for every visitor.
With designations as Best City Beach, one of America’s Top Family Beaches, one of the Top Singles Beaches in Florida, and one of the Best Beaches from Maine to Hawaii, be assured, Clearwater boasts award winning beaches and so much more.
Providing extensive water recreation and nature-based and land-based attractions as well as a wide array of special events there is plenty to see and do. The rich history and heritage of this area along with the outstanding performing and visual arts make Clearwater the perfect place to spend time in – or out of – the sun.
Spotlight on Spruce Creek Fly-In
“America’s Premier Fly-In Country Club Community”
Spruce Creek Fly-In is a privately owned airpark and country club community on a 1,250 acre former World War II Naval airfield near Daytona Beach, Florida. It is a gated community with 24-hour security, has private 4000′ runway with over 14 miles of taxiways to hangar homes, a country club with golf and tennis, parks, and walking / jogging and bike paths. An ideal home of aviation enthusiasts and all who wish to live in a secure, active and friendly community.
Spruce Creek is our home and our passion. We live the Spruce Creek Adventure every day – from flying, to sports, to the many forms of art and culture that flourish in this vibrant community. No matter what your lifestyle, no other community offers the diversity of the Spruce Creek Fly-In Community.
Spruce Creek Fly-in features Homes with Hangars on the taxiways, Golf Course Homes on or with a view of the golf course, Country Club Homes and Nature Homes adjacent to Spruce Creek preserve, Commercial Hangars, Town Homes. There are still a few Building Lots available.
Country Club Properties of Spruce Creek
204 Cessna Blvd, Daytona Beach, FL 32128
386-756-6105 (office)
Harmony, Florida – A Healthy Lifestyle
Harmony offers a healthful and life-enhancing environment for its community members.
Miles of trails and walkways, two natural lakes with community owned boats, athletic courts and fields, a championship, International Audubon certified golf course and a community activities program provide an endless list of mentally and physically stimulating things to do for all ages.
Walking is a great way to get around, if it’s made pleasurable. The compact site plan allows homes to be a safe and convenient walk away from retail and professional services, recreation and work. This activity is not only good for the body, but also helps to promote human interaction and community building. Harmony is one of the few communities in Central Florida where students can easily walk to elementary, middle and high school classes without crossing a major street.
An Open Community
Community features belong to the community.
The open space values of Buck and Cat lakes and the Harmony Golf Preserve are considerable and are integrated into the developed areas yet protected from damaging use. These resources are significant enough that they are purposefully not isolated by private lots, but are available to everyone.
As in a traditional town, there are distinctive neighborhoods at Harmony, but none is gate restricted. Instead, a mix of housing styles and sizes makes for an economic and social balance in each neighborhood. We believe that a mix of incomes, races and personal skills make for a strong community and is essential to the future of our society.
A Sense of Place
Planning for Harmony reflects its roots in Osceola County’s natural and agricultural heritage; not as a mere historical recollection, but as a functional part of the modern developed community.
Florida provides a globally unique climate that has given it a distinctive landscape and human culture. Though technology has given us the ability to overcome most natural limitations, this can come with a price and a certain amount of loss. Harmony’s developed landscape and architecture are inspired by the native
Kissimmee Prairie and Florida flatwoods vegetation and the ranches and settlements of Central Florida in an effort to be in balance with its setting.
Streets and neighborhoods are designed in a neo-traditional manner with natural and man-made boundaries and landmarks to provide community identity. This approach encourages the construction and preservation of buildings, community features and entire neighborhoods that reflect what is important to the community and which therefore will retain their economic vitality and value over time.
Community Building
Harmony promotes its lifestyle and builds a sense of community through community scale events.
Seasonal activities such as the Dark Sky Festival, Flag Day Celebration and Harvest Festival are intended to call attention to aspects of life at Harmony that we are especially proud of and want to share with those outside of Harmony. These events bring the entire community together in their preparation and presentation and are excellent ways to foster the small town character and
friendliness that Harmony is known for. While these events are now organized and conducted with strong support from the Harmony Development Co., participation by Harmony residents is encouraged and it is expected that these will become 100 percent community directed.
Spotlight on Harmony, Florida
People in Harmony with Nature
People live better when they live in regular contact with animals and nature.
We believe that human health and well being can be promoted through the interaction of people, animals and the environment, as advocated by the mission of the Harmony Institute, and we encourage a better understanding of the effectiveness of these practices through the Institute’s efforts to examine them at Harmony. Harmony welcomes pets through its dog parks, Pet Cafe, walking areas and park features and thereby support residents gaining the health benefits that pet ownership and interaction can bring.
Through compact development, Harmony is able to include viable habitat areas and parks within a short walk of every home. Backyard habitats for birds and butterflies are encouraged. A goal of keeping 70 percent of Harmony in open space assures the protection of meaningful blocks and corridors of habitat throughout the community. Miles of trails and nature-based amenities
facilitate the human-nature experience. A professional on-site conservation program assures that a quality environment and wildlife population is maintained and that people are allowed to enjoy them.
Small Footprint
Harmony subscribes to the principles of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle in its efforts to eliminate waste and promote alternative energy sources.
Efforts are made to reduce the amount of waste generated. This includes not only avoiding the purchase of excess or unneeded materials, but also using materials efficiently.
Any surplus or excess materials are reused where possible. Construction waste is considered and stored for reuse, surplus disposable products are avoided and even surplus buildings and other structures are examined for second uses.
Harmony supports Osceola County’s recycling program for household waste and provides space for a community recycling center. Landscape and mowing waste is either allowed to return to the soil where it was produced or collected for appropriate composting or other reuse.
Alternatives to petroleum-based energy sources are favored and encouraged. This includes such measures as supporting neighborhood scale electronic vehicles in community design and in preferential access and parking and the use of energy conserving equipment, appliances and operational practices. Capturing solar and geo-thermal energy is demonstrated through practical uses such as domestic water heating, community pool warming, and electrical generation.
Sustaining Resources
Harmony strives to sustain its natural systems so that our grandchildren can get the same benefits that we enjoy.
Buck and Cat lakes are managed in a hands-off style: the shorelines are protected in their natural conditions and the only artificial things introduced to them are access walkways, community owned boats and fishing lines.
A network of treatment ponds cleans street and yard storm runoff and protects the quality of our wetlands and groundwater. Irrigation controls on public and private lands are responsive to landscape growing conditions and conserve water resources.
Street lighting, residential lighting and commercial lighting are provided in a way that protects the darkness and starshine of our night skies.
Every home is built to Energy Star or better standards to conserve energy. Harmony is planned to provide a convenient mix of land uses so its residents will be able to realize the potential to meet most daily needs within a short distance of their homes. The goal is to make walking, cycling or neighborhood type vehicles a viable first choice for transportation.
Spotlight on Harmony Golf Preserve
The Harmony Golf Preserve, a Troon Golf®-managed facility, is truly one of the finest golfing experiences you are likely to find anywhere in Florida – and all within easy strolling distance of your front porch.
The only Johnny Miller-designed golf course in Central Florida, the Preserve offers a challenging game to players of all skill levels – a 7,428 yard, 18-hole signature course, free of forced curves and arrayed carefully with bunkers, hazards and manicured Bermuda grass greens.
What truly distinguishes the Harmony Golf Preserve, however, is that it was designed from the start to serve first as a fully protected environmental preserve, and second as a world class recreational facility. As the course wraps around existing wetlands, golfers enjoying a relaxing day and may find themselves sharing the morning with their native animal neighbors. Engineered to serve as a fully functioning wildlife habitat, the Preserve was crafted to connect the Harmony community’s many smaller ecologies into a single environmentally intelligent and sustainable nature preserve system.
At nearby Harmony Town Square, golfer amenities include a 18,000-square-foot clubhouse, a fully stocked pro shop, men’s and ladies’ locker rooms, Harmony Town Tavern and a full-service banquet facility.
In 2007, Harmony served as an official host site for ESPN Golf Schools, a series of one-day golf classes for adults and juniors at all levels.
To reach the pro shop or schedule a tee time please call 407-891-8525 or go to www.harmonygolfpreserve.com
Spotlight on Brooksville, Florida
The City of Brooksville, as it is known it today, was settled by four pioneer families: the Howell family which settled the northern part of town; the Jon L. Mays family which settled the eastern part of town; the Hale family on the west; and the Parsons family on the south.
The country life is alive and well in Brooksville, Florida. The small town, located about 50 miles north of Tampa, is nestled amid gently rolling hills and wide-open spaces with the Withlacoochee State Forest as its back yard.
Brooksville was actually founded over 150 years ago. Brick streets, murals, and a smattering of antique shops and boutiques put the “charm” in its charming downtown.
Just down the road you’ll find Weeki Wachee Springs. The older attraction still has the most unusual show in Florida — “mermaids” that perform underwater in the crystal clear springs. The adjacent water park, Buccaneer Bay, is small by Florida standards, but popular with locals.
North of Weeki Wachee and northwest of Brooksville is Homosassa Springs State Wildlife Park where you can see the “real” Florida — showcasing nature. Area activities include sightseeing tours, boat rentals, fishing and snorkeling.
Brooksville is an exceptional place full of character and wonderful views. It’s a living memory of Mayberry – a jewel on a hill away from the bigger built up modern commercialism of cookie-cutter Super stores, chain stores and strip malls. It’s as genuine and as old as our oldest memories of good times the way they used to be – and as relaxing and friendly as you could ever imagine.
Spotlight on Spring Hill, Florida
Spring Hill belongs to Florida’s Nature Coast and is in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area.
In Spring Hill, Florida you will find an array of landscapes ranging from natural coastline bordering the Gulf of Mexico, to green rolling hills, plentiful farmland, wide lakes, quiet rivers, and bubbling springs.
Considered the northern gateway to Tampa Bay, Hernando County boasts some of the state’s finest bass fishing in its lakes and rivers. Other outdoor recreation in the area includes hiking, canoeing, golf and biking on both paved and wilderness trails. Spring Hill is home to Buccaneer Bay, Florida’s only water park housed within a completely natural setting.
If golf is your game, Oak Hills Golf Course, Timber Pines, Grand pines Quail Ridge Gold and country club are just a few of the courses you can choose from in Spring Hill.
Real estate in Spring Hill is flourishing. Homes for sale are reasonably priced and there is a lot of new construction. Although Spring Hill Real Estate is a growing location, there are still plenty of properties and resale homes, as well as new homes to choose from. Here you will also find a variety of independent home builders who will customize a home to your liking on your own lot.
The Suncoast Parkway also makes other cities such as Clearwater and St. Petersburg easily accessible. A trip to Orlando is only a short 2-hour drive allowing for a day of fun and excitement with all the attractions it has to offer. Spring Hill residents easily enjoy other nearby attractions within Clearwater and Tampa such as Busch Gardens, Clearwater Beach, and MOSI.
Spring Hill is also home to the “city of live mermaids” Weekie Wachee Springs and has made Spring Hill its home for nearly 60 years. This historical attraction brings you up close to mermaids and some of Spring Hill’s most wonderful natural surroundings. It is also home to Buccaneer Bay, Florida’s only natural spring water park, complete with slides, beaches and fun for the little ones.
Spotlight on Tierra Verde
Tierra Verde was once 15 islands covered with mangroves, pines and bush. These islands ranged in size from only a few acres to the largest, Cabbage Key, having over 289 acres. For centuries, Indians used the islands for ceremonial and burial grounds. A marker remains on the east side of Pinellas Bayway, just north of East Shore Drive, where Indian relics were found in a typical shellmound, excavated when the road was built to Fort DeSoto Park. The islands were sacred ground to Indian nations as far back as 500 years ago, archaeologists suggest, and deadly conflicts occurred when outsiders trespassed.
Then the Spanish explorers came. One explorer, Ponce De Leon, came to the area in 1513, and again in 1521, when he received the wound that he later died from after returning to Cuba. Later, Hernando De Soto, Navarez and John Ortiz explored, and then pirates and buccaneers sailed the area, including Jose Gaspar, Juan Gomez and Jean LaFitte. A treasure was reputed to have once been buried here.
In 1848 Robert E. Lee, then a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. army, recommended that Mullet Key be used for coastal defense in Florida. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, Fort De Soto was built on Mullet Key. Remains of the fort still stand, along with fortifications on Egmont Key. In 1948 the federal government sold Mullet Key to Pinellas County for park and recreation facilities, now Fort De Soto Park.
Early settlers to the area included Baltimore sea captain William Bunce and Silas Dent, who with hisbrother had a dairy farm. Dent lived on Cabbage Key until he died there in 1952.
Although two homes were built on Monte Cristo in 1923, and one in 1946, things were quiet until the mid-1950′s when a Dr. Bradley ‘Doc’ Waldron went to Tallahassee and persuaded the State of Florida to sell him Pine Key, Cabbage Key, Pardee Key and the surrounding bay bottom. This was about the same time construction of the old Skyway Bridge began. Waldron formed a partnership with two builders from Detroit, Hyman and Irving Green, who became majority owners of a group of 36 corporations. They named their island investment ‘Green Land.’
Waldron-Green Associates applied for a dredge-and-fill permit in 1957. Their intent: to pump some 9 million cubic yards of sand and shells from the bottom of the bay and thus enlarge and raise the ground level of the three keys Doc Waldron had purchased from the State and join them to create one large island intersected with canals between the sections.
Meanwhile, others sought county and state permission to dredge and pump the bay bottom and build up Bird Key, today’s Bayway Isles and Isla Del Sol. Miami developer, Leonard Ratner, purchased land which became the site of Eckerd College. Hamilton Disston, the largest landowner in the United States, began and lost his Disston City development, later renamed Gulfport.
At first, the only way to get here was by boat. A ferry ran from Pass-A-Grille to a dock at the end of Madonna Boulevard. Then the state developed its plans for the Bayway and financed it through a $16.8 million bond issue. The Greens persuaded the Department of Transportation to add a Fort DeSoto leg and contributed the land on which it was to be built, thus assuring themselves of land access to their proposed Tierra Verde.
The State’s final road and bridge plans were approved in early 1960, and the developer’s dredging permit was granted in December of that year. The dredging would create about 5,000 acres of buildable land. Waldron-Green and their various partners and corporations then sold the islands, with the dredge-and-fill permits, to Louis Berlanti, a contractor from New York City, and his son, Fred.
Early in 1961 Louis and Fred Berlanti arrived on the scene. By June of that year Louis was named president of the Tierra Verde Community Association, Inc.; Doc Waldron and H. D. Sluyter, of Dallas, Texas, were each appointed vice president. There was considerable speculation at the time as to exactly whose money it was that Berlanti represented. He was generally considered to be a ‘nominee’ for Clint Murchison, the Texas oil tycoon, since both Murchison and Sluyter had been elected directors of the Association. One or more union pension funds were thought by some to be the real source of the new money.
On June 30, 1961, the Tierra Verde Community Association, Inc. Articles of Incorporation were filed with the State of Florida, and the original Declaration of Restrictions and Covenants were recorded in public records in August that same year.
By December 1962, there was a road and a bridge to Tierra Verde. In January 1963, Guy Lombardo’s Port O’ Call Resort had its grand opening, where Frank Sinatra, Marlene Deitrich, Liberace, Mel Torme, and many other musical and theatrical stars would later perform. Lombardo promoted the resort all across the country when the band did a 10-week national bus tour to more than 20 cities. Every show included several minutes to promote Tierra Verde and ‘his and the Murchison’s Port O’ Call Resort.’ All across the country, their bus had a Tierra Verde banner hung on its sides.
Six months later, on August 16, 1963, Louis and Fred Berlanti were gone. Fragments of their bodies and their exploded airplane were found floating in Lake Okeechobee. No additional details of the questionable accident were ever reported. The St. Petersburg Times alluded to ‘covert’ local activities.
With the death of the Berlantis, Tierra Verde was in the hands of the Murchisons for more than 14 years. Guy Lombardo and his band returned for only one more season, and was quoted as saying he had tried to strike a ‘new deal’ with the Murchisons but had not succeeded. He never returned.
Guy Lombardo died in 1977, the same year that real estate developer Frank E. Mackle, III was elected president of a new venture called the Tierra Verde Company, a joint venture between Madonna Corporation, (a Murchison interest), and Delverde [Deltona] Corporation. Because of lack of local interest, the Tierra Verde Company worked with a network of international brokers and sold many lots to overseas investors. But growth on Tierra Verde was still slow. However, in 1984 Pinellas Bayway got an exit ramp off Interstate 275 and Tierra Verde property sales increased greatly because of the easier access. In January 1985 Deltona turned the community over to the homeowners.
So now we have Tierra Verde, named perhaps as much for the brothers Green as for its green land. We are 667 acres, an unincorporated portion of Pinellas County. Both St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach have bid for our annexation, but we’ve voted to stay independent. The 15 original islands are now the present six areas of Tierra Verde: Monte Cristo, Entrada, Pinellas Bayway, Sands Point, East Shore (Bayview) and West Shore (Oceanview.)
We have waterways, 150 to 350 feet wide and some 15 feet deep, that are scientifically engineered so that the Gulf of Mexico’s tidal actions help sweep the waterways clean. We can fish the local waters, spot dolphin and sometimes manatees, sail to the Gulf of Mexico in minutes, and play on the beaches of Fort DeSoto Park.
In 1980 Tierra Verde real estate was valued at $15 million. By 1991 values had soared to $304 million. In November 1996 the Pinellas County Property Appraiser’s Office evaluated Tierra Verde property at $349 million, 1999 values were listed at $478 million, 2003 values were listed at $632 million, 2009 values just over 780 milion. There are now approximately 2,000 single-family and multi-family structures on Tierra Verde, as well as a number of commercial enterprises. An estimated 2,500 families are expected when Tierra Verde is built to completion.
Take a moment to view the current issue of our magazine!
