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DAYTONA BEACH — The New York Times recently reported that “The Future of Aging Just Might be in Margaritaville,” but for residents of this fast-growing active adult community, the future has already arrived.

On Thursday, representatives of Chicago-based 55places.com presented the developer of Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach with an award as the nation’s most popular 55-and-older community in 2018.

The award comes on the heels of Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach’s inclusion in another industry ranking of the nation’s top 50 master-planned communities of 2018.

The community going up on the north side of LPGA Boulevard, just west of Interstate 95, last year sold 412 homes, with roughly half built to date.

“It’s more than we expected, which was around 350,” said Bill Bullock, president of developer Minto Communities’ Latitude Margaritaville division.

Latitude Margaritaville welcomed its first residents in March 2018 and is now home to more than 400.

“In the morning, I’ll wake up and pinch my husband to make sure we’re not dreaming,” said Donna Waryga, 62, who moved to Latitude Margaritaville from the Philadelphia area with her husband Walt, 66, in November.

“It has been way beyond our wildest expectations,” the self-employed travel agent who works out of her home said of living in the Jimmy Buffett-themed active adult community.

Waryga said the opportunity to live near the beach and the planned amenities, including a residents-only town center and private beach club were what initially appealed her and her husband.

But what they have found they enjoy most about living at Latitude Margaritaville are the other residents.

“The people, we love everybody on our street. We feel the camaraderie,” she said, adding that they typically wind up chatting extensively with neighbors whenever they pick up their mail and enjoy going on organized outings including bowling at Ormond Lanes or Happy Hour visits to nearby restaurants such as Bahama Breeze or 31 Supper Club.

“We’re not Parrotheads (fans of Buffett’s music),” she said, adding that she and her husband have never even been to a concert by the singer-songwriter whose 1977 tune “Margaritaville” serves as the chief inspiration for Latitude Margaritaville.

Latitude Margaritaville resident Tiffany Moen, 52, who moved in with her husband Eric, 56, in October, also said living at the 55-and-older community has been better than they had hoped, “and then some.”

“I feel like we all won the lottery,” said Moen, who works part-time as a front desk receptionist for the Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce.

“There’s such a sense of community and people wanting to get to know each other,” said Moen, who relocated with her husband from Athens, Georgia.

Moen said she and her husband are frequently invited to neighbors’ homes for get- togethers.

She added that they also have been impressed with the quality of the houses.

“They are very well built and have such a beautiful tropical feel. And if there’s something that needs attending to, someone is on it right away,” she said of living in the maintenance-free community.

 

While Latitude Margaritaville already has an activities director on staff who regularly organizes outings for residents, construction is well underway on the first phase of the community’s town center, which will include a resort-style pool, a “Latitude Bar & Chill” restaurant with an indoor/outdoor bar, a “Fins Up!” fitness center, and a “Latitude Town Square” that will include a bandshell stage for live music, an 18-foot-wide video screen to show televised concerts and sporting events, and a cushioned dance floor.

The initial phase, which will also include seven pickleball and three tennis courts, is on track to open in May, with a second phase planned that will include a “Workin’ N’ Playin’ Center that will include arts-and-crafts facilities as well as a business center, pet spa and golf cart customization workshop.

Set to begin construction possibly as soon as mid-year is a planned residents-only private beach club in Ormond-by-the-Sea which will be accessible via a continuously operating loop shuttle bus. The beach club is expected to open in 2020, said Bullock.

Also in the works is a Publix-anchored neighborhood shopping center next to the community’s entrance at the intersection of LPGA Boulevard and the new south extension of Tymber Creek Road.

Unlike the residents-only Latitude Margaritaville town center, the Latitude Landing shopping center, which is being developed by Sutton Development, will be open to the public and is expected to open by mid- to late 2020.

On Thursday, a construction crew could be seen working on the foundation for the planned Publix supermarket.

“Latitude Margaritaville has set itself above and beyond,” said Todd Warshauer, vice president of sales for 55places.com, who presented the award to Bullock.

Latitude Margaritaville was chosen because of the high volume of traffic it generated on the 55places.com website as well as the number of homes sold last year and the community’s planned amenities and overall concept, he said.

Bullock said he expects sales at Latitude Margaritaville to accelerate when the first phase of the town center opens.

Also set to open in May will be 10 “Stay-and-Play” houses at Latitude Margaritaville where prospective homebuyers “can come down for a nominal fee and stay for two to three nights to try out the community,” Bullock said.

 

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Choosing the year’s best community is never easy, but there is one neighborhood that really stood out in 2018, not just for its amenities and attractions, but also for the enthusiasm its residents feel for their new home.

The 55 Places Community of the Year for 2018 is Latitude Margaritaville in Daytona Beach, Florida, where 6,900 single-family homes are being designed with Jimmy Buffett’s famous lifestyle in mind. The residents who have already moved in are quick to gush that their every expectation has been exceeded, and they have high hopes for the upcoming amenities.

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Kelley and Bill Sarantis have been taking lessons in pickleball.

“We want to be ready for the pickleball courts,” Kelley said. “So we’re working with an instructor in the community. It’s great exercise and safer than tennis, and it’s also a great way to meet neighbors. We’ll all be learning and playing.”

Kelley says she’s also looking forward to the pool, which will be important when the family is in town. Margaritaville will have both an outdoor resort-style pool with a patio and an indoor lap pool for residents who want to swim for exercise.

Lana said she is also looking forward to the pool, as well as the fitness center and exercise facility.

“They’re putting in shops adjacent to the community,” Lana said. “It will be nice to have a grocery store that’s within golf cart distance.”

The Latitude Bar & Chill Restaurant will provide a casual dining spot for residents and their guests. Other amenities planned include an aerobics studio, a theater, a business center, and a pet spa named Barkaritaville.

If these amenities aren’t enough, there’s also a strip of private beach that’s on its way.

“Everyone is looking forward to the beach club,” Lana said. A shuttle will run to the beach, where residents can enjoy the Atlantic Ocean, take walks on the sand, and enjoy coastal living within the privacy of their own community.
 
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DAYTONA BEACH — Latitude Margaritaville residents Kelley and Bill Sarantis were told last week to expect a visit from “some people from corporate.”

The couple assumed that meant the developers of the Jimmy Buffett-inspired 55-and-older community.

On Thursday morning, they were surprised to find out the guest knocking on their front door was none other than the singer-songwriter himself.

“I walked from the kitchen and saw out the window that it was Jimmy Buffett,” recalled Kelley Sarantis. “He said, ‘Hey, neighbor!’”

The Sarantises were one of several Latitude Margaritaville homeowners Buffett met with Thursday morning.

His visit included a tour of the active adult community’s model homes as well as having lunch at the new beachside Landshark Bar & Grill on State Road A1A.

Buffett, whose primary residence is in New York City, purchased a house in the gated Latitude Margaritaville community. That house is nearing completion, said Kelley Sarantis.

“His home is beautiful,” said Kelley Sarantis, who also works as a Realtor.

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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.”
 
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