Leisureville Page 7

  When it comes to NORCs, the gauge of convenience isn’t the number of drive-throughs, but rather the number of things that can be reached on foot or by public transportation. Much of Europe is chockablock with NORCs because its living patterns were well established before the advent of the automobile.

  I suspect that The Villages’ downtowns could be easily retrofitted to encourage genuine downtown living, but such a future seems remote. Although many of the buildings in Spanish Springs and Sumter Landing have second and even third floors (often with elevators), no one is permitted to live there. The spaces are either used for offices or for storage, or left empty.

  Downtowns often reflect the character of the people who live in them. The Villages’ downtowns don’t have residents, but they do reflect the character of the development—a society in which leisure is the guiding principle. Because there is no real shared history, the pursuit of leisure becomes the glue that bonds the residents to the development and to one another.

  This is not a surprising outcome, given that America has had a decades-long love affair with convenience and leisure. We invented and popularized fast food, drive-throughs, and the La-Z-Boy recliner, among other La-Z inventions, such as homes designed to look historical but without the hassles of a genuine restoration.

  Even vacations have been made “easier,” as can be seen in our obsession with all-inclusive resorts and cruise ships where you never really have to do anything. About ten percent of American leisure travelers now choose all-inclusive resorts as their destination. And the number of people opting for cruises grew from 1.5 million in 1980 to 10 million twenty-five years later. What could be more a convenient form of leisure than a cruise, especially when many cruises now offer “sanctuary decks” guaranteed to be free of children? Convenience and leisure, we’ve been told, make life easier. So why not build an entire community predicated on convenience—even if it’s an illusion?

  The bus leaves Sumter Landing and continues along gently curving boulevards past one gated village after another. The monotony is partially broken up by landscaped retention ponds and undulating golf courses. Several of the more expensive houses—some of which cost well over $1 million—have what appear to be zoo-size aviaries attached to them. These are actually screened-in porches big enough to accommodate pools with waterfalls and outdoor auxiliary kitchens. “That’s where we party!” Buddy says. Many of these homes are ringed with additional security cameras.

  We pass by a Veterans Administration clinic, an animal hospital, and a few of The Villages’ larger regional recreation centers, which have tennis and basketball courts; Olympic-size pools; and large indoor rooms where Villagers work out, play billiards and hold club meetings. An annual amenity fee gives every Villager access to these and other smaller recreation facilities, as well as archery ranges and workshops for cabinetry and metalworking.

  “Take a look, Andrew,” Mindy says, pointing out the window at an expanse of athletic fields bordered by grandstands. “This is polo!” she says excitedly. Mindy nods her head, as if to forestall my disbelief, and repeats the word, this time in a hushed reverential tone: “Polo.” Villagers don’t actually play polo. Rather, they watch a polo team consisting mostly of Gary Morse’s friends. Popular with Florida’s moneyed class, polo is undoubtedly a status booster for the developer as well as his residents.

  Mindy tells me that one of the fields on the edge of the complex serves as a popular site for golf cart tailgates and drive-in movies, which, Mindy adds, serve as “a fond reminder of the old days.”

  Next door is the Savannah Center, a performing arts facility which was built to resemble Scarlett O’Hara’s beloved Tara, and which attracts touring Broadway productions. “I just can’t imagine what we don’t have here,” Mindy remarks. “It seems like we have everything we could possibly need. And it’s so beautiful—like living in a Thomas Kinkade painting, but in real life.”

  The tour ends back in Spanish Springs, at a small reflecting pool with a bronze statue of Harold Schwartz in a sports coat, one arm outstretched in a gesture of welcome, much like the statue of Walt Disney at the Disney theme parks.

  “Mr. Schwartz is dead now,” Mindy explains, “but he founded The Villages—and I thank him for that.” Mindy falls silent as Buddy the bus driver turns around to face me, still wearing his miniature top hat. “Me too,” he says. “Mr. Schwartz always said, ‘You shouldn’t have to be a millionaire to live like one at The Villages.’ And by gosh, that’s still the way it is.”

  After lunch I set out to find The Villages’ only playground. It’s shown on the map of the development, but finding it is another matter. I finally locate it in an area isolated from normal pedestrian traffic at the far end of a vast parking lot, hidden behind a bunch of bushes. It’s small, with a cute little imitation ship for children to run around on, but there are no swings, seesaws, or other playground basics. A mother with two children arrives and sets her kids loose on the fake boat. A short while later, they run up to their mother and profess boredom. She gathers them up and heads back to their car.

  Two county sheriff’s cars are parked outside the playground. The cars are idling, air-conditioning running full blast, windows wide open. The deputies are clearly taking advantage of the area’s remoteness. One is sound asleep, his arms slack in front of him, head tilted back. He snores lightly. The other deputy is quietly reading a magazine. I approach and ask him if there is another playground.

  “Nope. If you’re looking for a real playground, you’ll need to drive to the town of Lady Lake,” he tells me. “It’s about fifteen minutes away, depending on traffic. There are usually other kids there, so your little ones might find someone to play with. There’s also a Burger King with a playground if you’re really in a pinch.”

  I ask him if there’s much crime in The Villages. “I’d say ninety-five percent of our calls are medical. We call the folks here ‘frogs’ because they come down here to croak. We’re basically here as a ‘presence.’ I think that’s the way the developer wants it to be.” The other deputy lets out a snort and readjusts himself without waking up.

  Back in town, I sign up for a boat tour of the lagoon that provides Lake Sumter with its modest shoreline. The sightseeing skiffs leave from a set of docks at one end of the boardwalk. I pay two dollars and step in with eight other visitors. A man wearing stripes on his shoulders and bifocals on his nose introduces himself as Captain Marvin. He directs our attention to Dickie, his potbellied first mate, who proceeds to show us where the life jackets are located. Dickie warns us that if conditions get rough we should “move away from the edge of the boat.” I look out onto the shallow, motionless body of water designed by the developer’s architects. It doesn’t appear likely that we’ll need life jackets.

  As the canopied boat put-puts away from the dock, Dickie points to the lighthouse up ahead, and claims that it was built by a “Yank” named Willie B. Wagner more than 150 years ago. “He was a character among characters, but the locals liked him and called him the Commodore,” Dickie tells us. “It took him ten years to complete the lighthouse, starting in 1835. The Historical Society came in and restored it some years ago.” The other passengers nod their heads hesitantly, unsure whether or not to believe this tale.

  We quickly run out of lake and the boat turns to port. Dickie recites for us a tale about a Seminole chief named Billy Bowlegs “a friend to whites who lived on this shore.” Bowlegs eventually moved to Tampa to open a banana plantation. Dickie adds, “It used to be that bananas were straight until Billy Bowlegs put the curve in them.”

  Billy Bowlegs actually did exist, but he didn’t live on “these shores” and his biography was more tragic. There is no evidence that he was actually bowlegged, yet his nickname persists in the pages of history, most likely derived from an earlier Seminole chief. Billy Bowlegs’s real name was Holata Micco, or Alligator Chief, and he led a band of guerrilla warriors during the Second Seminole War. When he finally tired of fighting, he moved his tribe
farther south. The whites followed and harassed him, thus starting the Third Seminole War. Bowlegs eventually surrendered, and joined his defeated brethren on the Trail of Tears to the Indian Territories of Oklahoma. Later, in the hope of receiving favorable treatment from the federal government, he fought bravely alongside Union soldiers during the Civil War, but he died soon afterward of smallpox.

  We pass along the far side of the lake. We’re told that this stretch of waterfront is rumored to be the secret meeting place of the now defunct “Fraternal Order of Exalted Alligators.” It’s an attractive spot with undulating banks quilted with fairways and sand traps. Some golfers cheerfully wave to us as they drive by in their cart. A passenger on the boat interrupts Dickie’s presentation with a question: “Are those two par threes in a row?” Captain Marvin spins the wheel and put-puts back to the docks.

  Safely back at port, I walk off in search of a can of soda, but I have difficulty finding a simple corner store—because there isn’t one. I step into a shop advertising “Sassy Sizzlin’ Styles” and ask the saleswoman where I can find a soft drink. “Hmm. You could get a soda at Johnny Rockets,” she says. “But you’d probably have to sit down and drink it there. Well, gosh, I can’t think of anywhere you can buy a can of soda around here.”

  As I continue strolling around the square, I’m overcome by a peculiar sensation. I can’t quite put my finger on it until I walk past a bantering rock and then a chatty lamppost. It’s the afternoon’s headlines from WVLG streaming out of hidden speakers. Curious, I move closer to the lamppost to catch the day’s news, and then a commentary by Paul Harvey, a nationally syndicated conservative radio host. After the news, a DJ spins Neal Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” “Hey, it’s OK to turn up the radio real loud on this one,” he announces gleefully. “Your kids still live up north!”

  Retailers have long known that music affects customers’ purchasing habits and employees’ morale. Music is frequently piped into elevators, stores, offices, restaurants, and factories. Now it’s being used as a mood enhancer for an entire town. It’s so well integrated that gauging its effect is difficult, but the people strolling around the central square appear blissfully calm and cheery, much like the music.

  I walk over to Johnny Rockets for a quick bite. Although it was founded in 1986 on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, Johnny Rockets bills itself as “the home of the original hamburger.” Inside, one is greeted by smiling teens in snappy costumes reminiscent of the 1950s. These teens don’t shout, push, smoke, or curse; they just smile and hop to it, and then leave The Villages’ fenced perimeter each evening.

  I ask an eager young waiter wearing a sharply creased paper hat how a restaurant chain founded two decades ago could have invented the hamburger. “Gosh, I don’t know,” he answers while scooping ice cream for a malted milk shake. “I never thought about it. Maybe they mean their original hamburger.”

  The company’s philosophy, displayed on the cheery menu, looks as if Harold Schwartz himself could have written it. “Johnny Rockets was founded on the belief that everyone deserves a place where they can escape today’s complicated world and experience the food, fun, and friendliness of feel-good Americana.”

  I step outside again and witness an unusual sight. Across the street in the town square I spot a black kid on a BMX bike. He’s wearing a white stocking cap and headphones. A moment later, he is gone.

  6

  The Chaz Incident

  ALTHOUGH THEY KNEW IT WAS HARDLY A CHARITABLE THING to say, early residents of Youngtown, Arizona, were quick to point out that the success of their community was predicated on the exclusion of children, and they must have felt vindicated when Del Webb copied the idea next door. But as time progressed and the desert scrub around them turned into strip malls and suburban housing developments, the residents of Youngtown saw their bubble repeatedly threatened by droves of young families moving into the area. Lured by its cheap real estate, some of these families even tried to sneak into Youngtown.

  Ever vigilant, Youngtown residents strove valiantly to keep these clandestine families out of their community. In 1990 alone, the town fathers boasted of evicting thirty-two underage families from housing in Youngtown. Three hundred more were evicted over the next four years. The evictees protested against Youngtown’s age segregation but never successfully challenged it. Youngtown continued to hold the line and evict nonconforming residents with impunity.

  Then came what old-timers refer to as the “Chaz incident.” Depending on whom you ask, Chaz Cope was either a sensitive teenager, or a “young thug” and a “terrorist who held the town hostage.”

  Chaz, a skinny sixteen-year-old, moved in with his grandparents in 1996 to escape a physically abusive stepfather. According to Youngtown’s rules, children under eighteen were allowed to visit for only up to ninety days a year. Rather than try to hide him, Chaz’s grandparents went to the town officials and asked for an extension because of the extenuating circumstances. They were charged a $300 filing fee and had to plead their case in front of the town council. A three-month extension was granted, and the town officials put a placard on the grandparents’ front lawn informing neighbors that the family was housing a juvenile.

  It was the grandparents’ hope that Chaz could live with them until he finished high school the following year. But when they went before the council a second time, their plea for another extension was unanimously denied. The council further voted to fine Chaz’s grandparents $100 a day for illegally housing a child. Chaz was relegated to the status of human contraband.

  Chaz’s grandparents appealed their case to the state attorney general, who decided to give the history of Youngtown’s ordinance a good hard look. The standoff made international headlines and put Youngtown’s age-segregation policies in the spotlight. Meanwhile, Chaz and his grandparents suffered frequent harassment. Their car was vandalized; neighbors tried to prevent Chaz from playing basketball in his driveway before school, claiming that he was violating antinoise ordinances; and a town councilman circulated a fabricated juvenile court record alleging that Chaz had been charged with possession of marijuana. “My goal was to let people know that this boy wasn’t the kind of angel that he was portrayed to be by the press,” the councilman later said.

  The residents of Youngtown could survive the black eye they were getting in the press because they had already dropped out of society to a certain extent, but the attorney general’s much-anticipated ruling proved to be a crushing body blow. According to the state’s findings, Youngtown wasn’t an age-segregated community, and legally it never had been. Therefore, the town’s attempts to enforce the policy were entirely unlawful.

  For all his bravado in marketing, Big Ben Schleifer never actually wrote any language into Youngtown’s original deed restrictions to ensure the community’s future as an oasis for the aging. It probably never occurred to him to do so: who else would want to live in a retirement community in the middle of nowhere with no schools and no access to any other family-oriented amenities? Schleifer was so far ahead of his time that it would take the legal system—and the spread of Phoenix—decades to catch up, but in 1998, they eventually did.

  When Congress passed the Federal Fair Housing Act in 1968, many types of discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing were outlawed. But age discrimination wasn’t addressed; the act was designed to eliminate only discrimination based on race, color, religion, and national origin. It was later amended to prohibit discrimination based on sex, in 1974, but it did not address age at all until 1988, when it was further amended to prohibit discrimination based on handicap and something referred to as “familial status”—households with children under the age of eighteen.

  The congressional debates over the protections given to familial status were particularly contentious, with the result that these households were not granted the same blanket protection as the other categories. Family advocates pointed to well-documented reports of discrimination against families with children
in the housing market, but landlords’ groups and advocates for senior citizens argued that some housing should be reserved exclusively for older citizens because they often have special needs, as well as a preference for an age-homogeneous environment. The early developers of housing for baby boomers were also among the many industry opponents to the legislation. At the time, child-free, amenity-rich suburban condo complexes for singles in their twenties and thirties were rapidly growing in popularity.

  Although Congress acknowledged that discrimination against families with children was prevalent, it sided with the powerful landlords’ and seniors’ lobbies, thus making prohibitions against children the only type of housing discrimination specifically protected by federal law.

  “We recognize that some older Americans have chosen to live together with fellow senior citizens in retirement type communities,” a House report stated. “We appreciate the interest and expectations these individuals have in living in environments tailored to their specific needs.” The amendment of 1988 exempted “housing for older persons” from the Fair Housing Act, thus, under certain circumstances, permitting an absolute ban on children age eighteen or younger.

  The amendment permitted the banning of children under the following circumstances: the housing was specifically designed for senior citizens under the aegis of a government program; the housing was occupied exclusively by persons age sixty-two and older; or at least eighty percent of the housing was occupied by households with at least one person fifty-five or older. (If the percentage of homes owned by residents of the qualifying age drops below eighty, a community loses its age-segregated status and the gates are suddenly opened to one and all.)

  Commercially, this “fifty-five and older” exemption was the most malleable and therefore became the darling of developers. Limiting housing to people who are sixty-two or older severely limits the demographics of potential buyers. Imagine having to turn away an interested couple because one spouse is only sixty-one. Such restrictions greatly reduce the marketability of a development. Nursing homes usually apply this restriction, since they are unlikely to attract younger residents anyway.