Rotondo West Holiday Home

This is our third year at Rotondo West, Florida after being given information from a friend who stayed here some years and said it was nice. Its very easy to find somewhere to stay in Florida providing you book early enough and I don’t mean weeks I mean a year or more. Each year the SNOWBIRDS as they are referred to come down from the North American States and also Canada to escape the harsh winters. They either fly down and rent a car and stay in similar places to us, or others with a RV ( recreational vehicle) often the size of a huge bus make their way down and park in one of the many RV Sites which are all over Florida, some a really excellent places with swimming pools and restaurants whilst other a bit more out in the sticks often look rundown. Did you know that 1 in 10 of the US population live on what they call Trailer sites, some of which are pretty horrible and its a big sign of poverty in a country which seems to haver it all, but does not.
In our past years of travel in various places in USA we have been appalled in condition some people live and its not unusual to see a couple of really beautiful houses next to run down old houses with the yard filled with old cars, cars which have outlived there day but they could not afford to pay for the return for recycling and so they buy another car every few years and when it dies they just dump it in the yard and get another one.
Anyway back to Rotondo West. This is a huge site of about 35000 acres and it has had a chequered history. The original idea was to be on the East Coast of Florida in the Palm Beach area but although some of the ground was obtained it crashed financially soon after. Then some years later somebody thought the concept was great and purchased some old farmland which was subject to flooding, a bit like the rest of low lying Florida, and started a huge sales campaign in the North of the Country and people started putting down money for their dream home and each month they would get a status report, such as the outer wall are up, or the electrical work has started , the kitchen is being fitted whilst customer were still sending money but actually nothing was being built and it was huge con.

The owners were found out and so another entrepreneur came along and actually started to build houses but of such poor quality that owners started to complain. This last owner was funnelling money to his Gambling Companies in Atlantic City and finally it was again taken over by a new investment company and banks who were also owed loads of money and together with the residents it has become a great place to live. There are still quite a few plots for sale and you can buy a plot and build a three bedroom house with pool for about £ 250K and for £ 350K you could two lots and a huge 8000 sq ft house.
The residents activities are huge from gold, to to tennis from flower arranging to mah-jong, you name it somebody has a course for it. There are currently about 4000 houses with a population of around 9500. One of the original ideas of this site was to have business enterprises in the centre of the site with people living around but after a while and the history of the site this finally never happened. It is also a deed restricted site and so compliance is important, you can park an RV or a boat on the driveway permanently and so an area has been set aside where you can park them away from the housing. Englewood is the local town and Port Charlotte is not that far away and in these two areas everything is available from shopping to restaurants, cinemas, hospitals. Hospitals in this next of the wood advertise their services and if providing A & E services near the hospital on a main road you will see a signboard giving the average waiting time to be seen. The longest I have seen of the many signs is about 18 minutes.
We seem to have a different house each year and this one we are in is the nicest and not overlooked although the swimming pool is a bit to shallow one end but the temperature up and till today has been good but now it looks like the heather has broken and so let hope they can fix it quickly.We have already booked for next year Feb/March 2021 , we could not get this one as already fully booked but the one are renting next year is pretty much just across the road and in the process of construction. It might be ready before we leave here and so we can take a look.
Its a little cooler, yesterday and today and down to about 24 Centigrade yesterday and up to 25 today and then back for the rest of next week to 27/28 C, Unfortunately the pool heater seems to have stopped and so we have asked them to repair as soon as possible.
Time for a coffee!!!!