Sitting on top of the world

I referred to as on a new client yesterday, a pair who have been transferring from London to a retirement community in Clearwater, FL. This is form of unusual in these modern-day times. Through the second one half of the 20 th century, Florida was THE area to retire. The climate changed into best and life became cheap.

Well, the weather's still ideal, however life right here is something but reasonably-priced. 15 years in the past, the price of residing in Florida caught up with the costs in rest of the u . S . A .. 10 years in the past it exceeded maximum of the country. Florida's not the retirement haven it once become and the demographics have shifted dramatically.

My capability clients this morning are entering into a vestige of Florida's heyday as a retirement Mecca. It's a 6,000-resident complex called On Top of The World. The area must be seen to be believed, I can't believe that some thing similar exists everywhere else on this planet. For the lifestyles of me I can not discover any data on who built it or why, and although I've simplest been in the complicated a few times, the location haunts me.

Not in a awful manner, however the whole complicated is this kind of kitschy throwback I have a difficult time believing that it is no longer a tourist enchantment. The idea of the location is that it's meant to be a trip round the arena circa 1955. The builders took barracks-like, three story, cinder block apartment homes and brought a a one of a kind, "worldwide" facade to each one. Each building is more incredible than the final and what in reality kills me is that the thoughts conjured by the facades are the ones of a middle America with no interest in seeing the actual countries concerned. It's a World's Fair as imagined by way of Edith Bunker. I can't get sufficient of the region. From the whole lot I see and hear, the location is a welcoming, vibrant community and albeit, the structure has to keep people in an excellent mood.

This is a satellite photo of the complete complicated.

And right here's the primary front. It's like Epcot Center meets Versailles for lunch in Athens.

What follows are some Realtor pictures I scrounged up. Can you inform? Ugh. I will go back to On Top of the World on a photo safari certainly one of in recent times. Somebody has to record this place. So excuse the awful images and be a part of me in a ride around the arena...