Editorials

SEAGROVE BEACH, Fla. — County Road 395 connects U.S. 98 to County Road 30-A, which local boosters designated "Scenic 30-A" and it is, mostly.

As beach developers pushed inland during the late, lamented housing boom, they built on both sides of CR 395. Today, the road divides success from failure and offers a good look at what has — and has not — happened to the Florida real-estate market.

Two developments, Watercolor on the west side and Nature Walk on the east, tell the tale.

Watercolor and the economy took off together. Financed from the deep pockets of what was once St. Joe Paper Co. (the largest private landowner in the state) and set down on property that its developers already owned, Watercolor was designed to attract people with the resources to build houses that were statements of achievement and affluence as well as investments. People did just that. In the years that followed, sounds of hammers, saws and Spanish filled the air.

There is less of that now, but despite the slowdown everything in Watercolor is still clean, green and dripping with prosperity.

I rode my bike through the other morning and had to dodge other bikes, golf carts and cars (SUVs mostly; the price of gas doesn't bother folks who aren't waiting for their "economic stimulus" check to pay the bills).

Then I crossed CR 395 and entered Nature Walk.

Begun a few years ago when the real-estate boom seemed sure to go on forever, Nature Walk was to be Watercolor-across-the-road. I peddled around it back then and was impressed by the large, welcoming Visitor/Sales Center, by the entrance with its covered bridge, and by landscaping that included well watered, manicured green spaces, little lakes, brick streets and paved bike/pedestrian paths. All the utilities were in place and underground, and six "spec-houses" were going up. The future looked bright.

But timing, as they say, is everything.

And timing slipped up on Nature Walk and bit it.

Today, the gate of the gated community is locked. A small sign tells anyone who gets close enough to read it that if they want information, they should "inquire at the Visitor Center" — which is difficult since the Visitor Center is closed. The furniture is still there, the air conditioner is running, but the dead plants on the porch tell the tale.

Being resourceful, I got around the gate and biked through the place. The only other person there was a man with his dog, which he could turn loose to run since there were no cars on the streets.

The spec houses sat half-finished, looking as if the workers simply gave up and walked away. Maybe they did. The once-green spaces were brown, lakes were half full and stagnant, leaves littered the sidewalks and weeds grew in the cracks between the bricks. All around was evidence of how easily high hopes can turn into disappointment and failure.

Economists will debate long and hard about why this happened; they'll offer all sorts of solutions to prevent it from happening again. But for those of us who need something more than academic assessments to show what can befall folks when people in charge let the economy get out of control, Nature Walk more than serves that need.

Watercolor, on the other hand, reminds us who, despite the recession, is doing just fine.

And why.