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Grand plan for land built a city

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published April 30, 2007

BROOKSVILLE - The initial reaction to the new development of Spring Hill from the old local folks here in the Hernando County seat went kind of like this:

Thank you to Deltona.

Welcome (to the Northerners).

And then ... are y'all sure? This is going to happen? There was a master plan, with roads, lots for homes and sites for schools, churches, parks and shopping centers, but ... really?

"The thought around here was: 'Why would anyone want to live out there?' " said Steve Manuel, the veteran director of WWJB-AM 1450 downtown.

"It was met with a ton of skepticism, " longtime local attorney Joe Mason said.

"I don't think anybody sensed the magnitude of what was going to happen in Spring Hill, " fellow attorney and Brooksville native Bruce Snow said.

The reaction says a lot about what this area was not even half a century back. The southwest part of the county was sand hills, scrub oaks and some Cracker cattle. It couldn't grow citrus. It couldn't grow grass. Hernando's livelihood had always been based on timber, mining, citrus and beef, and for as long as anybody could remember, and their daddies, and their granddaddies, present-day Spring Hill was considered pretty much useless. It was good for hunting deer or quail. Maybe a weekend of camping.

Folks had to drive across on two-lane State Road 50 to get to the Weeki Wachee River.

But that was about it.

"That land wasn't suitable for agriculture, " said Dan Merritt Sr., a local judge who's born-and-bred Brooksville. "It was too sandy.

"The old locals were very surprised when they started developing out there. You couldn't have given away that land when I was a kid."

But here is the great shift in not only Hernando but Florida as a whole: What made a piece of land valuable then was what people could get out of it. The home-building Mackle brothers, of course - and many, many developers since - were far more concerned with what they could put on it.

At this point, depending on who's doing the talking, and when, and why, Brooksville's collective relationship with Spring Hill is less strained than it was in the past, or more strained, or not strained at all, but certainly the county's east-west rapport has been an up-and-down affair.

Lots of old Brooksvillians pooh-pooh Spring Hill as a place with too many cars, cookie-cutter housing and no center or soul - the kind of exurban, "edge city" ugliness Florida writer Carl Hiaasen once dubbed "glorified human ant farms."

Forty years ago, though, the Brooksville Sun-Journal called the Mackles' style of development "broad" and "intricate." They called the Mackles "three of the most prominent citizens of Hernando County" even though they lived in Miami. And they called Spring Hill "a dream city."

"Today, " the paper wrote in an editorial on April 30, 1967, "as the Mackles officially cut the symbolic ribbon on their new city, we would suggest that their presence promises good tidings for this small Florida county."

There was more: "We Hernando Countians feel we have plenty to boast about. But we're not stingy - no sir! We're more than glad to share our wealth with our Northern friends. There's more than enough for everyone who wants to live and play under the Hernando sun."

Ads from well-known Brooksville businesses welcomed and congratulated the Mackles.

The county commissioners thanked them. "Thank you for selecting Hernando County for your Spring Hill development." The ad ran in all caps.

When Spring Hill first opened, members of Brooksville's Junior Service League, Civic Auditorium Committee and the Leopard Athletic Club went out to Spring Hill to serve food and drinks to the first potential buyers on the tours led by the Mackles and their Deltona Corp.

"There were no restaurants out there, so we had to provide food, " said Barbara Manuel, Steve Manuel's wife, who also works at the radio station. "There was excitement. This was something Hernando County had never seen before. It was something new: 'Oh, gee, people are really interested in Hernando County?' "

"We wanted people to come here, " she said.

"Little did we know."

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

[Last modified April 29, 2007, 20:42:17]