Is Latitude Margaritaville, a “55 and better” community in Florida developed by Jimmy Buffet and his vision of retirement based on his “drunken Caribbean rock’n’roll the future of 55- plus communities? Al Murdock, a resident of Latitudes Magaritaville, reports experiencing “a feeling of neighborhood [he hasn’t] experienced since [he] was a kid.” Bill and Kelley Sarantis, when asked what did they hope for? responded not to be bored and not to be alone which so far has come true for them as residents at Latitudes Margaritaville. For the complete article follow our link to the New York Times. For the complete article, follow our link to NPR.org.
At the Jimmy Buffett-branded community, a hint at how an increasingly long-lived species might choose to spend its extra decades.
By KIM TINGLEY | NYTIMES.COM
OFF A VACANT stretch of highway in Daytona Beach, Fla., a line began to form outside the sales center for the first Latitude Margaritaville “55 and better” community. Those waiting dragged folding chairs, coolers, tents and dog-eared brochures featuring numbered sites that, in just over 24 hours, they could stake a claim to for a $10,000 deposit. The mood, shortly after 8 a.m. one Sunday last November, was festive, ecstatic even. Drinks flowed, pizza appeared, a steel-drum band played into the balmy night. Some neighbors in the 300-person queue liked each other so much that they decided to become actual neighbors, switching their site choices to live closer together. A sense of destiny seemed to guide many of their decisions. Karen Goodwin, 55, a homemaker, had won the exact amount of the down payment a few weeks earlier in a Domino’s sweepstakes. Matt Kelly, 62, a retired firefighter, had been chipping ice off his shingles in Orange County, N.Y., when a chunk broke loose in the shape of the Sunshine State, which he took as a sign.
“I never thought I’d be in a 55-plus community,” Ruth Kelly, 61, a former real estate agent and Matt’s wife, said the following September. The three of us were sitting at a table in the dining room of the home the Kellys had secured on Cool Breeze Drive, a single-family unit with the L-shaped lanai that Ruth had had her eye on. “Being in real estate, I didn’t think I would do what we did, wait in line for 11 hours. I always told my customers: ‘Never buy in Phase 1. Never buy sight-unseen.’ I did all of that. But I never once had doubt. Not once did I feel that way. It was meant to be, I really believe that.” Keeping reading.
