When Tony Minnick left the cold and snow of Cheyenne, Wyoming behind in 2014, he checked out locales from Hilton Head to West Palm Beach, dismissing all because there were “too many people. Then I took a drive down A1A with its two lanes. It was a little like Wyoming,” he said.
Minus the snow, of course.
Minnick purchased a home in Floridana Beach, a river-to-ocean community between Melbourne Shores and Sunnyland Beach.
Beth Lyons also escaped the snow, moving to Floridana Beach in 2000 from Duluth, Minnesota. “I like its quaintness,” said Lyons, who serves as the association’s public relations arm.
Raised in Philadelphia, Sid Kirchheimer has traveled for work as a writer from Orlando to Denver to the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania.
“We looked at the east and west coasts of Florida but always came back to the Melbourne Beach area,” Kirchheimer said. He and wife, Chris, scouted more than 100 houses before settling in Floridana Beach.
“This is a close-knit community. You drive up in a golf cart and everyone waves to you. This is by far the best place Chris and I have lived,” Kirchheimer said.
He liked the fact that houses resembled old-style Florida. Many of the residences were built from 1970 upwards.
“We even have old school motels,” Kirchheimer said.
In the early 1950s, a developer sold off lots in what would become Floridana Beach for as little as $800. Today, the neighborhood consists of some 400 homes, part of narrow swath of unincorporated Brevard County known collectively as South Beaches. The median real estate price in the Floridana Beach area is $421,031, which is more expensive than 87.4 percent of the neighborhoods in Florida according to neighborhoodscout.com. By comparison, the median real estate price in Melbourne Beach is $378,807.
Floridana Beach has no city hall, no town council. The closest thing to a local governing body is the Floridana Beach Civic Association, which dates back to 1955. In addition to three beach accesses available to members only, the association holds parties in its clubhouse and puts on celebrations for holidays like July 4. Association dues are $65 a year. “Not everybody pays, but others donate extra funds,” said Beth Glover, who moved to Floridana Beach in 1995, has served as president of the association since 2012.
Floridana Beach has a common bond with the other communities in South Beaches. “We are not isolated, we chose to be here, we like this type of lifestyle,” Glover said. “There is limited development and we like it that way.”
Being away from the maddening crowd and under county control means some services may take a few days, Lyons said. However, in an emergency, Brevard Fire Rescue can be on the scene in five minutes or less. Same with Sheriff’s officers.
“If there are concerns about new construction, new subdivisions etc we might get some complaints but they are usually specific to an individual property. Sometimes homeowners associations call us to enforce their rules, which the county cannot do,” said Brevard County spokesman, Don Walker.
Kirchheimer believes unincorporated Brevard is an advantage. “We get police, fire and trash services but at lower taxes, at least lower than homes we considered in Melbourne Beach, Indialantic and Satellite Beach.”
Because there is no local governing body, Floridana Beach residents often respond if someone is in need whether it’s preparing for a hurricane or post-storm clean-up.
“We also have an active crime watch,” Glover said.
Some two months ago, Minnick, association vice president, helped collar a hit and run driver who rear-ended another vehicle and took off. The association put out a vehicle description to the other South Beaches neighborhood associations. Such teamwork caught the culprit without the need of county sheriff’s officers. “He had no driver’s license,” Minnick said.
Glover said the association has had cars towed when non-members tried to park on clubhouse grounds to access the beach.
“Word got around,” she said. “They stopped taking up parking areas after that.”
Glover would like to see improvements in the communication between the various communities in the South Beaches. “That is why I am trying to gather the contacts with as many associations as we can. So when there is an emergency, we can get the word out even quicker,” she said.
Floridana Beach is not just a community of retirees. “There’s more children here than you would think. A lot of people here work,” Minnick said.
Analysis shows that 13.5 percent of residents work from home, a higher proportion than 97.5 percent of neighborhoods in the U.S. The area consists primarily of single-family homes and townhomes. High rise buildings are few along the Floridana Beach stretch of A1A.
“Density in the South Beaches is very low and would not be well suited for more intense development due to hurricane evacuation routes and other issues,” Walker said.
The place has a blinking traffic light, which marks the location of a Subway, convenience store, service station and real estate office. “And I can get from Floridana Beach to Publix on A1A in less than ten minutes and with no traffic,” Kirchheimer said.
According to Glover, people flock to live the laid-back, tropical Floridana lifestyle from far and wide, but true natives are few. “Everyone is from somewhere else,” she said.