NO.15 The Villages of Lake-Sumter
USINFO | 2013-11-05 12:07

CEO:H. Gary Morse
Web:www.thevillages.com
Activity
Closings: 2012   2,850
Revenue: 2012  $922(in millions)
Detached for sale   2,850
Regions:South
The Villages is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sumter County, Florida, United States. It shares its name with a broader master-planned age-restricted retirement community that spreads into portions of Lake and Marion counties. The community is controlled by several Community Development Districts (CDD's), most of which are controlled by H. Gary Morse, the owner of the development company which created The Villages.The overall development lies in central Florida, approximately 20 miles (32 km) south of Ocala and approximately 45 miles (72 km) northwest of Orlando.
The Villages proper had a population of 8,333 at the 2000 census and increased 517.33% at the 2010 census to 51,442. It is the center of The Villages Micropolitan Statistical Area (μSA), which consists of all of Sumter County; Lake County is included in the Orlando-Kissimmee, Florida, Metropolitan Statistical Area, and Marion County is included in the Ocala, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area).
The Villages consistently ranks as a very high growth area. A 2008 Census Bureau report ranked The Villages the No. 1 fastest growing micropolitan area in the United States.In 2012, Forbes magazine ranked The Villages as the No. 1 fastest growing small town
History
Harold Schwartz, a Michigan businessman, began selling land tracts via mail order in The Villages area in the 1960s. Unfortunately, for Schwartz and his business partner Al Tarrson, a Federal law in 1968 banned mail order sales of real estate.
Stuck with considerable portions of Florida land, in the early 1970s Schwartz and Tarrson began development of a mobile home park, Orange Blossom Gardens, in the northwestern corner of Lake County. By the early 1980s, though, the community had sold only 400 units. In an attempt to improve the business, Schwartz decided to buy out Tarrson's interest and bring his son, H. Gary Morse, on board in 1983.
Morse noted that the successful retirement communities (such as Del Webb's Sun City developments) offered considerable numbers of well-maintained amenities to the residents and were also surrounded by diverse amounts of nearby commercial development. Thus, Morse began to significantly upgrade the development, which worked out well – the mid-1980s saw improvement in sales, and Schwartz then began to buy large tracts of land in nearby Sumter and Marion counties for future expansion.
Morse officially changed the overall development name to The Villages in 1992. The development is still controlled in all major aspects by descendants of Schwartz and Morse.


 

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