The Villages is a leading retirement community of around 90,000 residents in North Central Florida, located between Leesburg and Ocala. It was the brainchild of Harold Schwartz back in the early 1970s and he built a mobile home park called Orange Blossom Gardens. His idea was to create a friendly 55+ gated community around a town square which would be the hub of live music and dancing every evening.
He not only achieved this, but gradually added more and more villa homes as baby boomers realized the advantages of moving to an affordable home in this sunny area. The community continues to expand southwards and is now controlled by his family, headed by his son Gary Morse. It has a range of homes from neat two-bed villas with white picket fences to million dollar premier homes overlooking golf courses and lakes.
One of the unique selling features of the Villages from the outset was that the homes were built in small "villages" and they all had golf cart access with dedicated trails to the supermarkets, plazas, medical centers, banks and sports facilities that became an integral part of Villages life. The homes were planned around golf courses and residents were offered an unbeatable promise of free executive golf for life – an irresistible offer for most. Other activities included in the low monthly amenity fee are heated swimming pools and themed recreation centers with clubs and societies covering over 400 topics. There are bocce courts, pickleball courts, tennis courts and horseshoes in each community. The Villages has its own newspaper - the Daily Sun, its own TV and radio stations, a hospital, hospice, theater, charter school, polo field, fitness centers, country clubs and bowling alleys.
Currently the Villages has two town squares with a third one under construction. The original Spanish Springs town square is surrounded by restaurants, the Church on the Square, Katie Belle's Club and the Rialto cinema. The second town square is on the shores of the artificially landscaped Lake Sumter, complete with lighthouse and pleasure boats. It is surrounded by streets of small boutiques, bars, brand name stores such as Izod, Starbucks, Panera Bread and a host of small gift shops and restaurants along with the Old Mill Playhouse. The town squares continue to host live music every evening and Happy Hour drinks are sold from the faux fishing shacks. Market stalls and special events are held regularly in this bustling upbeat social hub on Market Square. Appropriately in this surreal happy-land the motto is "It's always a beautiful day in the Villages" and so it seems to be.
There is certainly always plenty going on with clubs for every interest from crafts to books and from archery to fitness classes, literally from dawn to dusk. The area has 40 recreation centers scattered around the sprawling conurbation, each beautifully designed and decorated to a high standard on particular themes. Rooms are used for drama, dance, church meetings, Red Hats groups and local get-togethers. And there's more! The Villages also has a College of Lifelong Learning with a packed prospectus of enrichment classes from mastering foreign languages to art appreciation and the latest computer skills.
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