Leisureville Page 5

  Mary Louise shared her ex-husband’s entrepreneurial streak. When sugar was rationed during World War II, she and her second husband, Clifford Morse, raised bees and produced honey. She and Gary sold the honey door-to-door, as well as at a makeshift roadside stand. In time, the roadside stand, which was enlarged and renamed the Brownwood Honey House, carried vegetables and flowers grown by the family, and local crafts such as moccasins and pottery. Not surprisingly, Mary Louise turned to mail order as well: first Christmas greens, then gift boxes with honey and homemade jam. To further promote the growing business, Gary’s mother relocated an old one-room schoolhouse to the Brownwood site and opened a small country store.

  Mary Louise’s next marketing idea brought her regional fame for its bravado: one winter she moved an abandoned stagecoach inn across a frozen lake to her growing tourism complex. Halfway across the lake, the ice began to shudder and crack, and the workman jumped to safety as the inn slowly sank. Fortunately, it sank atop a sandbar and the frigid water reached only the first floor windows. Residents far and wide gathered to catch a glimpse of the half-sunken country inn, many opting to figure-skate around it once the ice refroze. Mary Louise refused to admit defeat and was said to have been furious when several local men offered to set the inn afire. Two weeks later laborers were able to cut a path in the ice and float the inn to shore. The Brownwood complex eventually added an ice cream parlor, history museum, and tearoom. The family’s farmhouse was soon transformed into a small steak house.

  Gary seems to have inherited his family’s drive to make money and its uncanny ability to promote its business ventures. As a teenager, he took his stepfather’s name—Morse. After high school he left town for college, but soon dropped out and moved back in with his mother.

  Gary put all his energy into making the Brownwood complex grow, paying particularly close attention to the steak house. He began offering free nightly entertainment, and the restaurant soon became the place to hang out for locals and the legions of tourists visiting during the summer months. At one point, Gary had to erect a giant circus tent to accommodate all his customers. He eventually built a dedicated concert space, and continued expanding the restaurant until it sprawled across the Brownwood property.

  Many locals fondly refer to that time in Central Lake’s history as the “Brownwood era.” This was a time when scores of attractive coeds worked for the restaurant and partied intensely after work. In contrast to the Brownwood’s lively reputation, Gary is often described as somber, aloof, and a “hard guy to get to know.”

  Meanwhile, Gary’s father, Harold, remained in Chicago, but traveled extensively, buying radio stations, gas stations, office buildings, and other real estate across the country. At one point he owned the maximum number of broadcasting stations permitted for one person and circumvented the federal law by setting up two “border blasters”—extremely high-power radio stations that broadcast to the United States from across the Mexican border. It was at one of these stations that the legendary disc jockey Wolfman Jack launched his career.

  Harold also turned to land speculation. He and a business partner bought land cheaply in Florida, New Mexico and elsewhere, subdivided it, and sold it sight unseen by mail order to American and British retirees dreaming of owning a home in the sun. At the time, Harold owned a hotel in Miami and took occasional trips around the state scouting out additional real estate to flip or develop. That’s how he came across the several hundred acres of remote pastures and watermelon fields in central Florida that would become Orange Blossom Gardens. Harold paid $150 an acre and sold it by mail in quarter-acre parcels for $295 each.

  When the Florida legislature banned mail-order land sales in the late 1960s, Harold and his business partner were left holding the watermelon fields. Harold left his business associate in charge of the land. The partner decided to manage a trailer park on it, but after ten years and only 400 homes sold, he wanted out. Harold wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep the investment either.

  But then, like “Big Ben” Schliefer, Schwartz paid a visit to Arizona—in his case, to his sister, who had recently moved to Sun City. He was impressed by what he saw. In contrast to his dinky mobile home park in the boondocks, Sun City was selling the dream of retirement on a grand scale, with recreation centers, numerous golf courses, and an active lifestyle for “those lucky enough to retire.” Schwartz marveled that Sun City was in the middle of nowhere and yet managed to attract legions of retirees with promises of the good life. Webb’s vision soon became Harold’s road map.

  In 1983, Harold bought out his business partner and set about selling more than homes; he started selling a lifestyle. “I got rid of everything I owned,” Harold later said. “At an age my friends were retiring, I put every cent I had into a high-risk venture. I was seventy-three.”

  In need of a new business partner, Harold urged his son, Gary, to join him. The invitation couldn’t have come at a better time. Because of Central Lake’s tourist economy, local businessmen had to make three-quarters of their revenue in just the summer months; the rest of the time, the businesses catered to a local population of about 500. But Gary had saddled himself with a sprawling restaurant and entertainment complex designed to seat hundreds. By most accounts he had overexpanded his steakhouse and was now deep in debt.

  Gary flew to Florida and walked around the Orange Blossom Gardens property with his father. He agreed that it had potential and promptly moved to central Florida with his wife and children. Although Gary’s steakhouse soon went belly-up, he proved his business acumen at his father’s trailer park in Florida.

  When Morse arrived, the community consisted of small homes connected by narrow roads, and only one small recreation center, called the Paradise. Father and son quickly set about building a community like Sun City on a modest budget.

  Gary brought more than just his family with him to Florida; he also brought tradesmen. If someone had a small lumberyard or a one-truck cement business, Gary invited him to relocate his business to central Florida. Many of these men, previously the owners of small businesses, now run multimillion-dollar companies that service The Villages’ empire.

  Although not a golfer himself, Gary decided that the little dimpled golf ball was the crucial factor in making Orange Blossom Gardens a success. He transformed a field of watermelons into a decidedly modest nine-hole golf course and began advertising “Free golf!”

  “Free golf” is still one of The Villages’ major selling points, but it’s more a slogan than a reality. Golf is “free” only on the nine-hole executive courses, and Villagers must still pay a trail fee if they want to use their golf carts. The cost of building and maintaining these “free” golf courses is included in the monthly amenity fees. In effect, all Villagers are subsidizing these executive courses for the minority who actually use them. Championship eighteen-hole courses can cost upwards of fifty dollars a game.

  Regardless, the little mobile home park swelled with retirees practically overnight. By 1987, the development had $40 million in annual sales. In short order, Gary built more and more amenities: eighteen more holes of golf, an unpretentious country club, more pools, and another recreation center with its own restaurant.

  As the community expanded, father and son tried to attract businesses that would cater to the residents’ needs. They knew that conveniently located retail stores and doctors’ offices were important to the creation of a truly self-contained community. But they couldn’t find any takers. The area was still in the middle of nowhere, and retirees were often assumed to be poor, thrifty, and generally bad business. So the family members themselves opened and operated several businesses, including a gas station and mini-mart, a restaurant, a liquor store, and a Laundromat.

  Flushed with success, they began building more homes on the other side of what was then a small county road but today is a sixlane highway. Within ten years, the family had built its own downtown (Spanish Springs); and soon a Winn-Dixie supermarket, a few banks, and other businesses
flocked to the development.

  Each phase of housing was more upmarket than the previous one, but the neighborhoods were configured similarly with adjoining recreation facilities and golf courses, just like Sun City. Faced with an increasing number of new neighborhoods, Harold hit on an idea: he would call each one a “village.” Orange Blossom Gardens, with its little trailer homes and modest recreation center, was renamed “The Village of Orange Blossom Gardens.”

  Golf carts quickly became a way of life. At first residents used them primarily to travel on actual golf courses, and then between golf courses, but pretty soon they used the carts to get around everywhere. Carts were inexpensive and easy to use, especially for people in failing health. And as The Villages grew, there were more and more places to take them.

  Because these neighborhoods were surrounded by intense rural poverty, and in an area with limited services, father and son suspected that residents would want to keep their world of leisure as self-contained as possible, so they provided just about everything the residents might need—and all of this was accessible by golf cart. It didn’t take long before golf carts were ubiquitous and residents lost interest in driving anywhere outside the compound.

  Harold acknowledged the peculiar primacy of the golf cart when, with the help of a local politician, he built a golf cart bridge across the highway between the older Village of Orange Blossom Gardens and the ever-expanding newer areas. The bridge is still there, rising steeply on both sides of the busy highway, with seniors zipping across it daily.

  Harold soon became a local celebrity. Unlike his son, he enjoyed socializing with residents, and some say he was a heck of a ladies’ man. He built a modest home in the middle of Orange Blossom Gardens and took long walks around the neighborhood. In time, the family learned to capitalize on Harold’s popularity, and embraced his emerging reputation as The Villages’ kindhearted “founding father.”

  Harold’s iconic smile was soon everywhere, even on The Villages’ own scrip—promotional paper money given to prospective residents and redeemable at businesses owned by The Villages. When the family wanted to promote its efforts to build an emergency medical facility near Spanish Springs, an enormous photo of Harold appeared on a billboard. He was shown, dressed in a loud sports jacket and porkpie hat, pointing at an empty parcel of land: “I’ll live to see The Villages Regional Hospital right here!” He did.

  It’s hard to tell if the decidedly less fancy Village of Orange Blossom Gardens is a place filled with fond nostalgia for Gary Morse, or an embarrassment of sorts, much as Jay Gatsby’s humble beginnings were for him in the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. At heart, Gary is a businessman, and since the Village of Orange Blossom Gardens was built out long ago, it probably holds little interest for him, at least financially. Curiously, few residents have any recollection of Gary from the early days; others have no idea who he is. But they remember Harold fondly, making Orange Blossom Gardens the center of Schwartz’ personality cult.

  A walk through the original development is a trip down memory lane. Unlike the sea of upscale homes, fancy boulevards, and state-of-the-art recreation centers in the fantasyland across the highway, Orange Blossom Gardens feels as if it belongs to an earlier era, as in fact it does. Younger Villagers call it the community’s “prehistoric” area, or the “Old Burial Ground.”

  One day I made the foolish decision to walk across the bridge connecting Orange Blossom Gardens with Spanish Springs. I was forced more than once to hug the walls as retirees zoomed past in golf carts. Once safely across, I strolled through the neighborhood. Many of the houses were gussied-up trailers with postage-stamp yards; some of them were already being torn down to make way for larger homes on double lots. The deed restriction against lawn ornaments had evidently been dreamed up after the development crossed the highway; I saw ornaments everywhere: a family of plaster deer lying down in a circle of red mulch; the obligatory lawn gnome; and a cutout of a little boy peeing while his toddler girlfriend shields her eyes in red-faced embarrassment. I also saw old women in curlers and hairnets —something that one rarely, if ever, sees across the highway, although there is no rule against wearing them.

  I knocked on the door of Elton Mayer, one of the fledgling community’s first residents. He is sometimes referred to as Orange Blossom Garden’s “first Mayer.” Unlike many of the residents on the other side of the bridge, Elton was actually old. Given the relative youth and vigor of the residents across the way, I was surprised to see someone walking with a cane. At eighty-six, Elton was in good health, but he was clearly not about to hop over the net after a game of tennis.

  Elton’s house, like the homes of many of his immediate neighbors, was small but tidy. He greeted me hesitantly at first, but was soon happy enough to talk about the old days. His time was limited, however: his second wife, whom he met at a square dance in Orange Blossom Gardens, was in the hospital.

  Elton told me he had first learned of the new trailer park while reading an ad in Elks magazine at his home in central Michigan. At the time, the ads for Orange Blossom Gardens had a dated yet poetic style, perhaps reflecting Harold’s years of experience in mail-order advertising: “For the residents of Orange Blossom Gardens, theirs is a quality of life that is so softly civilized, richly varied, infinitely better, and in one of the most desirable areas of Florida.” Although Orange Blossom Gardens is an hour and a half from Orlando, the literature nevertheless described the community as the “Gateway to Disney World.”

  Contemplating an early retirement because of his first wife’s ill health, Mayer found himself intrigued by the ad. It was a lifestyle he could afford: a cozy single-wide trailer home on a lot beside a small lake cost just $9,995. The couple took a visit in 1973 and liked what they saw. “I bought this lot the first day I saw it,” Elton said. “It was a piece of paradise—a house on the water in Florida, with orange trees in the front yard.”

  There were just thirteen trailers, three model homes, and the beginnings of a small recreation center. There were no age restrictions at the time, although a few years later Harold restricted occupancy to people over thirty. Local shopping was sparse, and nearby towns were run-down and sparsely populated. Elton described a time when he used to walk down the road—now a highway lined with strip malls—and buy pecans “from a native.” Then came the free golf.

  “There were just a few hundred homes at the time,” Elton said. “But when they started with the golf, the population tripled in no time, and the homes got bigger. They started out as single-wides like mine, and then they went to double-wides, and then to those modular homes. They put them up in a big hurry because they were selling so fast. They even built their own modular home factory. I had no idea the place would grow so big, but Schwartz was a good businessman. He knew exactly what he was doing from the start. And he did everything first-class.”

  Old-timers like Elton rarely venture farther than Spanish Springs, if they even go that far. One wonders if they fully comprehend just how big The Villages has become. “There’s no reason to go over there, across the bridge,” Elton said. “We’ve got everything we need on this side.”

  Farther down the street, I met a man named Sam who retired here in 1984 in a house next to his parents, after a life of laboring in midwestern steel mills. He offered to drive me around in his golf cart for a short tour. “Now mind you, back then there weren’t any golf carts,” Sam told me. “If we wanted to go somewhere, we had to walk.” I’m caught by surprise when he floors the accelerator and my back slams against the seat.

  The development’s oldest streets have charming Hawaiian-theme names like “Aloha Way,” which happened to be where Harold lived. Sam pointed out Harold’s old house, a simple ranch on a waterfront lot. A little dock led to a small gazebo on stilts. Beyond the oldest streets, the roads were named for members of Harold’s family. Four streets were named for Gary’s wife and children: Sharon, Jennifer, Tracy, and Mark. There was a Schwartz Boulevard, and a boulevard named after one of Harold�
�s former business partners.

  Sam stopped briefly to chat with a friend in his friend’s driveway. The garage door was open, and I spotted an elaborate train set with bridges, tunnels, and its own make-believe village.

  Sam took me farther into the development, where the golf courses are located and the bigger homes are modular. The streets had ambitious names such as Pebble Beach Lane, Saint Andrew’s Boulevard, and Palm Aire. There was a hilltop country club (not all of Florida is flat), which housed the Villagers’ perennially favorite pool: a whimsical creation reminiscent of the Flintstones, with a waterfall masking a hidden cave and a Jacuzzi. There was a tiki bar on one side, and on the other, a small karaoke tent with an older DJ wearing a big grin and blasting music loud enough to make me cringe. Inside, the locker rooms betrayed the club’s age. They were really just shabby bathrooms with an extra stall for a shower, and a few lockers.

  Sam floored the accelerator again and headed home. “I remember when this was all watermelon fields,” Sam said, motioning to the homes below. “You could reach back and pick one to eat.”

  Near the bottom of the hill, Sam nearly ran over a pedestrian. “Mind pulling to the side?” the man asked gruffly.

  “This is a street, asshole,” Sam shouted back, without slowing down. “What a moron.”

  I asked Sam what he thinks the major difference is between the two sides of the highway. He didn’t hesitate. “Money.”

  5

  How Bananas Got Their Curve

  TO GET A BETTER HANDLE ON THE VILLAGES’ SPRAWLING EXPANSION, one morning I resolve to take a trolley tour. The tours are run out of the sales office, which is housed in a tall mission-style building that takes up a whole city block in Spanish Springs.

  I start the day by pressing the snooze button on the clock radio until the Andersons’ automatic sprinklers shut off and my bedroom is filled with glorious Florida sunshine. The fresh air coming through the open window smells of wet grass and budding flowers. The New England winter gloom feels far, far away. “It’s another beautiful day here in The Villages,” the announcer on WVLG says before I switch off the radio for good. It’s hard to disagree.