Lake Weir Living

Hi to ALL,

I am a resident of the Lake Weir Living/Preserve development and the wife and I LOVE IT HERE. We built the house WE wanted and to our specifications. Yes we used one of the home designs that LWL had on their website and then we modified from there. Yes this area was started back in the early 80s and the developer at the time went bust; however, the current developer has been great to work with.

The builder was great to work with also. The builder; Drake Construction, has been in business since 1871 (website below). Holland Drake is 5th generation with the business and when he says something will get down, a hand shake still means something to him. He has been dealing with $1.5+ million dollar homes and upper end commercial in the Marion county area and has recently brought his upper end expertise into the $190-$500 dollar price range at LWP.

There are about 24 homes that have been built so far with the LWL/LWP developer, and we're ALL friends. Yes there are bikers, motorheads, and now RVrs in this close nit neighborhood. We all look out for each other and we like to get together and party also.

Yes there are no HOAs in the place and the developer has no intentions of pushing HOAs on us.

Our timelines:
+ Spring Break 2012: We came down to Orlando for a week and took a day to check out LWL and the area.
We liked the area and started playing cut and paste with the home design.

+ In the Fall of 2012: We called Neil and stated that we were serious about building at LWL.

+ JAN 2013: We started the formal design phase of the home design.

+ APR 2013: On another Spring Break week in Orlando we spent time with Neil, Adriana, and the builder discussing the planning and suggested changes. We were also taken around to all of the sub-vendors to start getting our thought processes inline for "YES WE ARE BUILDING A HOUSE".

+ JUN 2013: We came down to sign the contract with REV1 on the home design. Then we spent the next 2.5 days visiting all the sub-vendors to pick out flooring, cabinets, counter tops, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, and pool design.

+ AUG 2013: Permits were issued with REV3 of the home design.

+ SEP 2013: Ground clearing started at the end of the month.

+ OCT 2013: I made a trip down from Maryland and did a walk-thru with the open shell with the roof on.

+ DEC 2013: The wife and I came down to Florida the first week of the month and did an Open Stud walk-thru and verified that we had all the electrical switches, outlets, cable, internet, and phone plugs, where we wanted them. We also spend a couple of days visiting all of the sub-vendors to discuss any "tweaking" that needed to be done. We then went on a Christmas cruise to the western Caribbean, then we spent one more week in the Marion county area before we headed back home.

+ APR 2014: We brought in all of the appliances that we wanted installed in the house. We had as part of the building agreement to use our appliance financial allocations used for automatic yard irrigation.

+ The very end of APR2014: Was "turn-key" delivery of our house. We formally received the keys and did a punch-out walk-thru on the 28th, and the moving van showed up on the 29th of April.

http://www.drakeconstructionservices.com/

We built a house with 2700 sq ft of living space, 2400 sq ft of garage space, including a 45'x16'x16' RV garage with full hook-ups inside. On the outside we had an reinforce RV pad with 50 amp service and water connect from the home water softner system. This pad allows us to work on the 5th wheel outside the garage bay, such as washing the rig or re-activating the onboard SAT dish black boxes. The rv pad is also available for our friends from the north that happen to migrate through with their RVs.

Now we like that:

+ NO HOA.

+ It's a quiet neighborhood.

+ We're 10 minutes from the retail in Lady Lake

+ We're 20 miles from Ocala

+ We're outside the tourist environment of Orlando and the beaches; however, we're just:
* Over an hour from Orlando and the parks
* We're just about an hour from either the Atlantic or the Gulf beaches
* And we're close to jumping on I95 for traveling up/down the East coast.
* And we're close to jumping on I75 for traveling up into the Midwest or out to the West, or going south on the Gulf side of Florida.

My two cents, and enough said.

Interesting…it is now titled "Lake Weir Preserve." They send slick emails with a featured house. As I recall, it is located off a left hand turn on the main road from the Villages, a little bit before Acklawaha's (sp?) four corners.

stage wrote:
Lived near Lake Weir for 40+ years.They are trying anything they can to sell those houses. I guess they saw the success of The Villages and tried to cash in. What a difference a few miles makes!

And add to that the real estate crash. And you've got an empty piece of undeveloped land.

Although I could have picked up a 'very' nice home for dirt cheap in an uninhabited wooded area there is also the uncertainty of what is going to happen to that subdivision in the future as far as HOA's etc because the developer went bust.

If someone investor buys it up and starts to redevelop it the current residents will NOT be grandfathered in for anything from the previous developer.

I found the website and what a joke that site must have been created years and years before the market crash AND is indeed very very misleading!! :B

Lived near Lake Weir for 40+ years.They are trying anything they can to sell those houses. I guess they saw the success of The Villages and tried to cash in. What a difference a few miles makes!

wannabervin wrote:
Curious to know what it is like to live at Lake Weir Living, a development which seeks to attract RV-ers, as well as boaters, bikers, and gear heads. The community literature emphasizes that there are no HOA and no HOA rules. If anyone who lives there sees this, pls respond.

What state? Lake Weir, Florida?

If it is the one off Bay road I looked at every house for sale there during the real estate crash. It's a subdivision gone bust.

There were only about 20 or 30 homes built in a 500 home planned community. And 90% were in foreclosure selling for $50,000.

The ones that had never been occupied and that were severely vandalized were selling for $30,000. These were all homes that before the crash would have sold for $200,000. But because of what they sold for that is what their value today will be appraised at.

There is also a huge transmission line that goes right smack thru there, sometimes right up against the houses, if you like living with dangerous EMFS's!:W

Yes you are somewhat close to The Villages if that rocks your boat. But Oklawaha is not somewhere were I would want to live by. IMHO Lake Weir is overrated.

I ended up buying a house very close to there and sold it 4 months later! :W

Just saying, JMHO.