Our Towns

It's urban and rural, wealthy and middle-class, bustling and laid-back, traditional and edgy, conservative and liberal, sophisticated and naïve. But for all its contradictions, the Central Florida communities known collectively as "Orlando" are unmistakably family-friendly and unabashedly welcoming to newcomers.

Despite its outsized international profile, Orlando proper is, in fact, a medium-sized municipality of fewer than 200,000 people. The Orlando Metropolitan Statistical Area, however, encompasses 1.7 million people throughout Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties. Like the region's best-known city, the dozens of communities encompassing the metro area boast charms all their own.

In Central Florida you'll find picture-postcard villages where tree-shaded streets are lined with antique shops and Victorian homes, farm towns where citrus packing plants still crate and ship delicious oranges, and modern mixed-use developments built around resort-style amenities.

Yes, the elaborate tourist attractions garner the international attention. But all present-day visitors need to do is look out the airplane window to see what originally drew settlers to Central Florida: all those lakes.

Indeed, the Orlando area's lakes—as well as its rivers and streams—have played an integral part in the development of the region dating back to the 1800s, when early settlers arrived here via steamboat after traversing the north-flowing St. Johns River from Jacksonville.

Today, those shimmering bodies of water—some huge, some tiny and many interconnected by man-made canals or natural tributaries—provide some of the choicest real estate in all of Florida.

Whether it's the Butler-Tibet Chain of Lakes in south Orlando, home to pro athletes and golfing legends, or aptly named Lake County, with more than 1,900 named bodies of water, Central Florida is a water-worshipper's mecca.

While most lakes are rimmed with homes and towering cypress trees, others are dedicated to public recreation—waterskiing and wakeboarding, kayaking and competitive rowing—and many offer surprisingly good fishing.

Certainly, the key to savoring Orlando beyond the theme parks is simple: look for the lakes. While Florida's largest landlocked city might fall short when it comes to gorgeous beaches (but hey, it's only an hour's drive to the Atlantic) it's long on freshwater attractions.

NAMED BY THE BARD?

At the heart of Orlando sits Lake Eola Park, a 20-acre urban escape which, along with the neighborhoods around it, symbolizes what has come to be known as "The City Beautiful."

At one end of the lake is a monument honoring one Orlando Reeves, a soldier said to have been killed by Seminole Indians while guarding nearby Fort Gatlin during the Second Seminole War. During the city's centennial celebration in 1975, however, researchers scoured War Department records and found no record of Reeves.

Others have speculated that Judge James Gamble Speer, an early pioneer, was responsible for the city's moniker. Speer, an aficionado of Shakespeare, may have borrowed the name Orlando from a character in As You Like It.

We're pulling for Speer, since the Shakespeare connection dovetails nicely with one of the city's stellar events, the Orlando-University of Central Florida Shakespeare Festival which, for six weeks each spring, takes to the stage in the park's 950-seat amphitheater.

Then, no sooner has the curtain dropped on the Bard than the giddy Orlando International Fringe Festival launches its annual 10-day run. Modeled after a similar alternative theater-fest in Edinburgh, Scotland, the Fringe presents the sublime, the ridiculous and everything in between, using state-of-the-art venues in Loch Haven Park, a cultural focal point that also houses the Orlando Museum of Art and the Orlando Science Center.

More up-tempo pursuits lie within easy walking distance. The one-mile footpath around Lake Eola skirts past Thornton Park, a newly gentrified neighborhood boasting some of the city's best restaurants.

Downtown's main drag, Orange Avenue, runs just two blocks west of Lake Eola and, after the bankers and attorneys check out for the day, it's home to a kinetic nightclub scene.

While it's inescapably true that some of these clubs have served as Petri dishes for a number of homogenized pop acts—'NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys are among the groups that were launched in Orlando—a typical night serves up surprisingly diverse entertainment options.

THE BOOM CONTINUES

Given the region's charms, it's no surprise that rapid growth is continuing. In fact, areas once considered to be on the periphery are increasingly being drawn into Orlando's orbit.

For example, to the northeast, Volusia County, home to world-famous Daytona Beach, is a growth hotspot. And to the southwest, once-sleepy Polk County is rapidly sprouting subdivisions where orange groves once thrived.

And that pace is expected to continue for decades. While the United States is expected to grow at a rate of 47 percent through 2050, the anticipated growth rate for Central Florida is 136 percent—meaning we can expect an additional 4 million neighbors over the coming 45 years.

That will make the region larger than all but four other metropolitan areas, with more than 7.2 million residents.

Demand clearly isn't a problem, but supply is—at least temporarily. For builders, many of whom are now faced with backlogs, such basics as concrete and shingles are in short supply while the labor market is increasingly tight. For realtors, the number of existing homes on the market at any given time has fallen to as few as 4,100, about half the number typically available during the late 1990s.

Clearly, the laws of supply and demand dictate higher home prices on the horizon, which is as compelling an argument as any to buy now. But with so much activity going on in so many places, where should a newcomer look?

We can get you started. Following is a county-by-county primer, in which you'll find everything from new master-planned developments to funky historic districts.

Undoubtedly, there's a neighborhood, and a home, perfect for you and your family.

APOPKA

Apopka's roots, literally and figuratively, are in agriculture. However, this booming city of 45,000, located in the northwest corner of Orange County, now encompasses some of the region's most exclusive addresses.

Since 1990, Apopka has more than doubled its area by annexing some 11,000 acres, much of it previously rural land. This land grab has often put the city at odds with Orange County, especially when it comes to protecting the fragile Wekiva River basin.

Apopka was settled in the 1840s and named after the Timucuan Indian word meaning "big potato" or "potato eating place." Ironically, the farms that still surround the city grow just about everything but potatoes.

Noted as "The Indoor Foliage Capital of the World," Apopka's foliage industry is a multimillion-dollar business. Consequently, downtown boasts a stainless steel sculpture of a Boston fern instead of the expected war hero or early pioneer. Cut flowers, blooming plants, roses and bulbs are also grown in abundance.

But agriculture is rapidly vanishing as dozens of muck farms, created when Lake Apopka was diked during World War II, are purchased by the state and shut down in an effort to restore the polluted body of water to a pristine state.

Just west of Apopka is the agricultural town of Zellwood, home of the annual Zellwood Corn Festival. The event, held each May for more than 30 years, draws thousands to hear country music and nosh on what is widely regarded as the sweetest sweet corn grown anywhere.

Perhaps a corn-heavy diet is the secret behind the success of the Apopka Little League, winners of the Little League World Series in 1999 and perennial contenders, and the longevity of Apopka's octogenarian mayor, John Land, who has held office for more than 50 years.

A Masonic Lodge, organized in 1857, was the center of activity during the early years. The original building at Alabama Avenue and U.S. Highway 441 is still in use and has been designated a state historical site.

COLLEGE PARK

Retirees so dominated Orlando's College Park in the early 1970s that there was talk of closing Princeton Elementary, a well-regarded school that had stood since the neighborhood was platted in the 1920s.

Longtime resident Bill Jennings remembers being unable to buy baby aspirin for his infant son at the local drugstore because the manager wouldn't stock a product for which there was so little demand.

But that was then. This is now. "My wife and I were watching the Easter egg hunt the other day, and we both commented on how the younger folks are moving back," Jennings says.

Although the demographics may be changing, much about this beloved Orlando neighborhood remains the same. The 80-year-old commercial district along Edgewater Drive has always been home to an array of delightful mom-and-pop shops and eclectic eateries. The streets have always been quiet and the homes well-kept and charming.

"It's not unusual at all when the street's too narrow, and a guy in a car pulls over to let you by, he'll give you a friendly wave," says Kevin Gabriel, owner of a landmark sub shop started 45 years ago by his father.

College Park residents still enjoy a Grower's Market, held in Albert Park every weekend from October through May. And throughout the years, many of Orlando's best-known personalities have called the neighborhood home. Today's roster ranges from the likes of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer to rock 'n' roll legend Roger McGuinn of The Byrds.

So protective are College Park residents of their neighborhood that they banded together to protest the removal of a circa-1950s sign adorning the local Publix supermarket. The grocery chain quickly dropped its plans and restored the sign to its original Eisenhower-age splendor.

Much of the talk in College Park these days is over The Wellesley, a $48 million, 147-unit condominium and retail project that broke ground last November after developer Jim Kersey razed an office building on Edgewater Drive.

The project will become College Park's first multi-story, mixed-use project. At press time, 90 percent of the 107 condominium units in Phase One had been sold and 40 units in Phase Two were about to come online.

Kersey and his partners, Real Estate Collaborative, are also buying up other parcels along Edgewater, College Park's main drag, for future development.

Kersey, who lives within a few blocks of The Wellesley and is vice president of the College Park Merchants Association, says he spent two years pondering what kind of project would make financial sense while not impacting the neighborhood's cherished ambience.

"My goal is to polish the apple," Kersey says. "College Park is already a great place to live, but if we can have even more dining choices, more retail choices and more housing choices, then it will improve even more."

But most residential real estate activity in College Park still involves resales. Heather Dean of Sutton and Sutton Realty says College Park homes can still be found for around $200,000.

But for that price don't expect anything beyond a circa-1940s fixer-upper with two bedrooms and one bathroom.

EATONVILLE

Eatonville, notable as America's oldest African-American municipality, was incorporated in 1883. But it has been difficult for the historic city to remain viable under the burden of a declining tax base and routine accusations of financial mismanagement among elected officials.

Eatonville's most famous former resident is the Harlem Renaissance author and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston, who spent her early years in Eatonville and wrote about her childhood in books such as Their Eyes Were Watching God and Dust Tracks on a Road.

The Hurston connection has been the catalyst for the city's signature event, the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, which generally attracts more than 50,000 people on the last weekend in January. The Zora Neale Hurston Museum of Fine Arts is the organizer.

Unfortunately for Eatonville, however, the festival may be held in neighboring Maitland in 2006. Organizers said the area around Lake Lily could better accommodate crowds and vendors, although Eatonville officials and other African-American leaders are fighting against the proposed move.

Still, the future is hopeful. A highly rated TV movie based on Their Eyes Were Watching God aired in March, bringing national attention to Eatonville. And the city's fortuitous location between Maitland and Winter Park and its attractive land prices finally have begun to attract commercial and industrial investment.

Recently the city got a new focal point with the opening of the Orange County library system's newest branch at Zora Neale Hurston Square. The facility has about 25,000 books, CDs and DVDs along with 21 computers. Reflecting the community's heritage, the library's community room will feature a large Hurston display.