[Indy-Guy]

I have a book titled The Villages Then and now the author is Lee King and it was published in 2006. I purchased mine at All Booked up. It is a very interesting book. The information below is from that book.

Perhaps this will let many know a little more about H. Gary Morse.

In the early 60's Harold Schwartz and Al Tarson were purchasing land in Central Florida for $150.00 an acre and sellling it for $295.00 for a quarter acre and were doing this via mail order transactions. The mail order business collapsed and the two partners were left holding several hundred acres north of Lady Lake. In the mid 80's Al Tarson sold out to Harold Schwartz. Schwartz then visited Dell Webb's Sun City in AZ. Schwartz then decided that he could do the same in central FL. Up to this time Orange Blossom Hills mobil home park had operated at a loss for Schwartz. By this time Schwartz was 70 years of age and he sent his son Gary Morse to operate the endevor while Schwartz remained in Chicago.

Morse who is Harold Schwartz son from a previous marriage and was adopted by his stepfather in the mid 40's at his mothers instance that he take the stepfather's non-Jewish sounding name as she feared the Nazis would invade the US.

In 1983 Gary Morse a sales force of one sold 97 homes in Orange Blossom Hills that had only 50 homes when he arrived. The next year Morse had so many homes under construction that they had a cash flow problem and he called his Father is Chicago and asked if he should slow down sales. Mr Schwartz said keep on selling and build me one. Mr Schwartz then moved permently to Orange Blossom Gardens.

They haven't looked back since.

I reccomend this book if All Booked Up still sells it. The above is a sample of the information it contains.