Three years ago, she was Plantation Palms' first resident. Now the dirt roads are paved, and neighbors are much easier to find.
By JAMES THORNER
Published December 7, 2003
LAND O'LAKES - Ever fantasize about being the last person on earth? Alice Meunier did more than fantasize. She almost lived it. At least for a few months in 2001.
Meunier is the original Plantation Palms pioneer. When the golf course community in Land O'Lakes sold its first lots three years ago, Meunier was first in line with the builders.
After a day at work at the University of South Florida, she drove past dirt piles and spools of telephone cable, through unlit streets, around buckets strung with ropes serving as a security gate.
Her 1,340-square-foot villa stood dark and isolated on the edge of the 12th tee. Ryland Homes, the company that developed Plantation Palms, was nice enough to fire up a street light near her house.
A security guard on an all-terrain vehicle shined a flashlight in her window most nights to make sure all was right with the neighborhood's only resident.
"I liked it. It was quiet. It was an adventure. I guess I have a little bit of gypsy in me," Meunier said. "I was almost jealous when I didn't have the street to myself later."
Fast forward three years: Goodbye barren moonscape, hello manicured landscape. Part of the housing explosion of central Pasco County, Ryland has sold all but 97 of the 807 lots in Plantation Palms.
It's taken just three years essentially to build out, about half the time developers originally predicted.
The prediction predated Pasco's biggest housing boom, fueled in part by low interest rates. The county should rack up more than 5,000 housing starts this year, most in suburbs stretching from Trinity in the west to Wesley Chapel in the east.
The adjoining public golf course, with a well-appointed bar and grill, is now mostly trimmed with finished houses, not barren lots. The gangly saplings of three years ago have fleshed out their trunks.
"It's been a huge success. We blew through there. It hasn't been long at all," Ryland marketing manager Cheryl McCormick Brown said.
Plantation Palms Golf Club used to be visible from Meunier's stoop across empty lots. The view has been obscured in part by the identical beige stucco and rust-colored roofs of her neighborhood.
"When nobody was out there you knew everybody who moved in. But when it grew you lost that personal part of it," she said. "You'd come home from work and another family had moved in."
But for a brief few months, she was queen of the range.
Meunier volunteered to be Ryland's "guinea pig child" as the first resident of the golf course community planned for a 400-acre orange grove east of Collier Parkway. She had downsized from a house in Carrollwood's Calusa Trace.
Hooking up with a sales woman from Ryland's sister development across the street, Valencia Gardens, Meunier visited Plantation Palms when it was little more than a ripped up grove.
She got a sinking feeling: Taking a turn into what would be Meunier's future neighborhood, the car sunk two feet into immobilizing mud.
In February 2001 the house was done. The rest of her section, a gated neighborhood of villas called the Reserve, stood empty.
For a while Meunier appeared to be in a friendly race with another family about a half mile away to see who would be first resident. Meunier won.
"The man said, "Don't tell me you're first. We wanted to be the first house in here!"' Meunier recalls.
Expectedly, the community has gotten a lot busier. The golf course, which opened a couple of months before Meunier moved in, has grown more popular.
Her neighbor on the cul-de-sac has replaced screens, holed by flying golf balls, several times. She hears choice words from golfers who have driven the ball poorly or muffed putts.
"You can tell who made the shot and who didn't," she jokes.
In the early days it was hard to find enough pavement for an extended walk. These days, Meunier's strolls could last hours. The property is crammed with homes a mile deep. Only on the neighborhood's farthest reaches are backhoes still hacking dirt.
In what could come as a surprise in a neighborhood less than 3 years old, resales have been brisk.
On Meunier's cul-de-sac, four of 13 homes have changed hands. It highlights the transience, albeit a middle-class variety, of many suburbs.
"Traditionally, in new neighborhoods, you'll start seeing turnover in a year or two or three." said Bob Peercy of Prudential Tropical Realty in Land O'Lakes. "A huge percentage of it is corporate relocation. A much smaller percentage is divorce or loss of job."
No one's lost money, however. Keeping pace with annual housing price growth of 8 percent, one of Meunier's neighbors sold her house for $155,000 last month. She paid $129,000 in Aug. 2001.
Meunier's bought her place for $135,500. Two years later, Ryland sells the same villa for $155,900.
Some changes are less appealing. The Reserve had its first drug bust. The golf course manager planted a row of cypress in back of Meunier's house, that, once mature, could block her view.
Pulling onto Plantation Palms Boulevard is no longer a no-brainer. Hundreds of cars pass in the mornings and evenings. It's noisier, too. Some Tampa Bay Buccaneers players made their share of noise in the clubhouse during some after some post-golf tournament imbibing.
Ryland recently held a grand opening for its sixth and final phase. Most houses will kiss the fairways, and sales should wrap up by March. Ryland also sold 81 lots to upscale builder Nohl Crest Homes.
Meunier still treasures her residential solo act from 2001. She has since remarried, and the newlyweds share the Ryland villa. After almost three years, the old orange grove feels like home.
"I think the area is great and growing. You've not way out there," Meunier said at the golf club as she stretched her legs after work. "Everything and everyone is coming out here."
- James Thorner covers growth and development in Pasco County. He can be reached at 813 909-4613 or toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4613. His e-mail address is thorner@sptimes.com
