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A hometown born of no town at all

Spring Hill was created for retirees, but the families made it a home.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published April 30, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo - Stephen J. Coddington] Brooke Marotta, 4, tries to tell her skeptical great-grandmother Pat Wolfarth how old she is during a family get-together. The Wolfarths moved from New Jersey to Spring Hill in 1974. Now, four generations call Spring Hill home.

SPRING HILL

Four generations of Wolfarths gathered one recent Saturday afternoon for their monthly get-together at the little blue house with the brick trim out front and all the pictures on the walls inside.

Bob and Pat Wolfarth have lived here since 1974. Their three grown daughters - Debbie Carpenter, Diane Johnston and Tammy Paynter - all still live in the area, too, and so do five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

The family made a ring that took up most of the room for prayer.

"Join the circle, " Carpenter said. "Hold hands.

"Can't have a broken circle."

The prayer was for thanks for the food they were about to eat, and each other - and this, their home.

Spring Hill "opened" 40 years ago today. The three house-building Mackle brothers and five Hernando County commissioners cut a red ribbon at the corner of two-lane U.S. 19 and brand-new Spring Hill Drive, and people started to come down for the hot sun, the square feet and the right to never shovel snow again. They have not stopped since.

This is an odd but important anniversary in the life of west-central Florida.

Spring Hill changed Hernando socially, politically, demographically - and, maybe most of all, rapidly. This deceptively big, still unincorporated population base in the southwestern part of the county has gone from 0 to about 100, 000 in just these last 40 years. Hernando as a whole: 13, 000 to more than 10 times that.

Spring Hill also is an uncanny case study in the state's overall evolution.

It is, says Gary Mormino, a history professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, "a microcosm of modern Florida."

This land was little more than sand hills and scrub oaks. Most of the folks up here considered it useless. It was too sandy to grow citrus or grass.

But the Mackles weren't interested in growing either.

They started a retirement community.

Then, pretty quickly, there were some younger families.

Then, over time, as Florida's population shot from 2.7-million in 1950 to 15.9-million in 2000, there were more and more young families in Spring Hill, and wider roads, and more schools, then overflow trailers outside those schools, then two Wal-Marts with a third on the way, then long waits at lights that five years ago didn't even exist.

Some people poke fun at Spring Hill, and with common criticisms of sprawling, new Florida - too many cars, too few sidewalks, no center, no soul. Former Sen. Bob Graham once called it "a mistress state." Nobody makes a commitment to it, the thinking went.

But a less-documented part of the story of the state's exponential expansion is the families who did more than just move here. Who stayed. Who made it their place.

In Spring Hill, that's the McGeehans, the Vonadas, the Thomases, the Eccards, the Calloways.

Dennis McGeehan, for instance, is the principal of Hernando's Central High School. He is also the son of one of Spring Hill's original and longtime Realtors. He has children who live here, and brothers, and sisters, and they have children here, too.

"I don't see myself picking up the stakes and moving, " he said, "and I don't see them making any plans to leave, either."

This is home.

Just like with the Wolfarths.

Bob and Pat Wolfarth moved here from New Jersey in August 1974. They bought their 1, 450-square-foot house for $34, 200 and drove down Interstate 75 with the girls.

"We got off 75, and we started smelling chicken poop, " Tammy Paynter said.

"We were just, like, 'What did you do to us?' " Diane Johnston said.

At that time, there was a Winn-Dixie, a 7-Eleven and not much more than that.

"And we were two of the youngest people in Spring Hill, " Pat Wolfarth said. Bob and Pat Wolfarth were in their 40s. "It was all elderly people."

One year, Pat Wolfarth said, she taught Sunday school at the First United Methodist Church to just one little boy.

Carol Thomas, who also moved here in 1974, had a baby in 1976 and had to order a crib out of a catalog. She couldn't buy one around here.

Since then, though, and especially after the Suncoast Parkway was finished six years ago, the people who have been here have noticed a difference. Now almost one in five here is a kid in school. Now 71 percent of the households are families. Now the average commute time is almost 26 minutes.

Now, Joanne Schoch, who came here in 1989, hears kids riding bikes and splashing in pools.

So does Gloria Nadeau. She's been here since 1988.

"I like it, " she said. "It's life. Real life."

Within this shift, the Wolfarths cooked dinners and played in local softball leagues and did youth ministry.

They had their 25th wedding anniversary. And their 50th.

Two of their daughters were married at the church. And one of their granddaughters.

One of their daughters went back to New Jersey for a bit - then came back. Another one went to California for a bit - then came back.

"And I think for our grandchildren, " Pat Wolfarth said, "this is just home."

And once a month, they come together, always, all four generations, here at the little blue house that's almost as old as Spring Hill itself, and where the walls are covered with school pictures and soccer plaques and family portraits that hang like cared-for keepsakes in a well-worn wallet.

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352 848-1434.

[Last modified April 29, 2007, 23:13:03]