Living Your Retirement Dreams and Growing Young in The Villages; Florida's Friendliest and Healthiest Hometown

By Lindsay Collier

In the heart of Central Florida about 70 miles northwest from Orlando exists what is probably the biggest retirement community in the world, called The Villages. If you are looking for a place to live your retirement dreams, in this book you will find all the information you need to know about this wonderful opportunity. If you are currently a resident of The Villages this is the perfect information guide for you. Written by a 10 year resident, you'll find it very enjoyable, upbeat, informative, and fun to read. Here you will find a detailed description of the day in the life of a Villager along with the history of The Villages, its layout, amenities, governing bodies media, town squares, recreation centers , parks, weather, employment opportunities, volunteer opportunities, and more. There are also chapters devoted to golf and other sports available and a look at the 2000 plus active clubs in this community. In addition you will find a plethora of information on entertainment and eating, health resources, lifelong learning opportunities, animal and plant life, and interesting day trips in Central Florida. This is truly a complete guide to one of the most interesting retirement communities in the world!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lindsay Collier
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310575563

Lindsay Collier

Lindsay Collier had a storied career with Kodak beginning as an engineer and becoming their expert in creativity and innovation. He also did some pioneer work focusing on humor in the workplace. He took an early retirement to write, consult, and speak about these topics and his books and presentations are characterized as being original, fun, and packed-full of good, usable stuff. After the loss of his 1st wife of 40 years to ovarian cancer he also wrote what might be one of the most creative books on surviving loss.Lindsay is an author and speaker well known for his humorous and information packed presentations. His latest books include Organizational Mental Floss; How to Squeeze Your Organization's Thinking Juices, Organizational Braindroppings; Musings on Organizational Change, Quotations to Tickle Your Brain, How to Live Happily Ever After, and Surviving the Loss of Your Loved One; Jan's Rainbow. Others are on the way

Book preview

Living Your Retirement Dreams and Growing Young in The Villages;

Florida's Friendliest and Healthiest Hometown

Lindsay Collier

Living Your Retirement Dreams and Growing Young in The Villages

Copyright 2015 Lindsay Collier

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 -Introduction -A day in the life

Chapter 2 - Golf/Golf/More Golf and Other Sports

Chapter 3 - Clubs in the Villages

Chapter 4 - Eating and other Forms of Entertainment

Chapter 5- Florida's Healthiest Hometown

Chapter 6 - Animal and Plant Life

Chapter 7- Day Trips/Rural Florida

Chapter 8- Closing Thoughts

About the Author

Foreword

In the heart of Central Florida about 70 miles northwest from Orlando exists what is probably the biggest retirement community in the world called The Villages. My wife Jean and I bought a home here in the fall of 2005. Although we still go back to family in Rochester, New York for a good part of the summer, we are permanent residents of Florida and consider this our own little paradise, It is a truly unique place unlike anything we've ever seen. When we decided we wanted to move to a warm climate we explored a few areas of Florida (mainly the Naples/Bonita Springs area), and on a trip back decided to drive up through Central Florida. We ended up stopping for lunch in Spanish Springs which was at that time the only downtown area of The Villages. I remember Jean looking at all the people happily driving around in their golf carts and saying, These people are all so happy - they must be on something.

A few months later we came back on one of the visitation packages for a week and decided that this was where we wanted to make our home. And, voila, here we are. They call this Florida's Friendliest Home Town and it definitely lives up to its name. I'm writing this in part because it seems there is a lot of information lately that would have you believe that The Villages is a place full of sex-crazed old people popping Viagra pills and chasing each other around; and it is just not like that at all. It's funny how fast a little saucy information travels. In reality The Villages is chocked full of some of the nicest people you could ever meet. Hardy a week goes by without news of several 50 or 60 year wedding anniversaries and Villagers continually go out of their way to help each other out. It is an incredibly caring community! The voter turnout here is at 80% - the average Villager cares deeply about their community and their country. And, the range of talent among the folks here is just incredible! Also, The Villages has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.

The prevailing attitude is that of people who are here living out their retirement dreams. We sometimes refer to it as God's Waiting Room. There are snowbirds (just come down for the winter months), snowflakes (just go back for the northern summers), heatbirds (can't stand the heat and want to get out of the kitchen), and frogs (we are here till we croak). Some of the common sayings include, It's just nice to be above ground. and, It is what it is.

My purpose here is to create a sort of operating manual for those who live in The Villages and also to give those who are currently contemplating retirement an idea of what this community offers. In the EBook version there are a generous number of website links so that you can bounce between reading the text and expanded information on the appropriate websites.

I sincerely hope you enjoy it and would love to hear from you anytime with any comments, additions, additional words of wisdom, etc. You can reach me at [e-mail].

Lindsay Collier

The Village of Tall Trees

Chapter 1

A Day in the Life of The Villages

History of The Villages

Let's begin with a short history of The Villages which begin back in the 1970's. Wikopedia has an excellent and complete history if you would like to get into more detail. In the early 70's Harold Schwartz began development of a mobile home park called Orange Blossom Gardens in the northwest corner of Lake County. His stated goal from the beginning was to offer a millionaire’s lifestyle on a retirement budget. Free golf was a part of the early vision. By the early 80's they had sold only about 400 units, and Mr. Schwartz decided to buy out his partner's share and bring his son, H. Gary Morse, on board in 1983.

Building on what some successful retirement communities like Del Webb's Sun City were doing by providing certain amenities to their residents as well as having diverse and nearby commercial development, Mr. Morse began to significantly upgrade the development. As sales improved through the 80's, Schwartz began to buy large tracts of land in Marian and Sumter Counties.