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Hernando Today

A community that begs to stay the same

HT photo by TONY HOLT

The Brooksville Dance Academy, led by Leslie Ann Chiucchi, performs Saturday afternoon during a barbecue at the Spring Lake Community Club. More than 50 people attended the picnic in spite of the looming threat of rain.

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By TONY HOLT

Hernando Today

Published: June 27, 2009

Updated:

SPRING LAKE - Agnes Perkins told a story that best described why she and most Spring Lake residents don't want to see any new housing developments.

A woman built a new house three blocks away from Perkins' house along Spring Lake Highway a few years ago.

She walked over to introduce herself, but was greeted with a woman with her arms folded and a scornful expression on her face.

"What do you want?" the woman asked her.

"Something like that just throws a wet cloth in your face," Perkins said.

"If people want to move in and be a part of the community, then we would like that," she continued. "We just don't want people to come in and change what we have."

Al Hernandez and his wife moved to Spring Lake from Atlanta, after the suburbs had expanded and had become, in their minds, unbearably crowded.

The couple drove up and down Florida looking for places to settle. Hernandez's sisters lived in Sarasota, but they were more drawn to the quieter, more rural sections.

They fell in love with Spring Lake.

"We bought 10 acres from a guy who was breaking up a dairy farm," said Hernandez, in a familiar Georgia drawl.

He, Perkins and about 50 others gathered Saturday afternoon behind the Spring Lake Community Center for a public barbecue.

At least once per month, many in the community come together for lunch and camaraderie. It is a way to continue the traditions that have made Spring Lake unique to mostly everywhere else in Hernando County, they said.

During the Great Depression, and as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal plan, a group of Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers came together to build the community center along Spring Lake Highway.

Perkins, who moved to Spring Lake a few years before the construction began, said many in the community wanted a place to vote, without having to do it inside a church.

Dick Thompson is making a formal request to make the building a historical landmark on behalf of the residents. The process so far has taken two years. There is still a ways to go, he said.

Some people still drive by the building and ask about it. They wonder whether the blonde-brick building is an old church or some kind of government building. Some of them even ask whether it is for sale.

"Every once in a while, people will still come by," said Thompson.

The building includes a kitchen, library and banquet room that used to be a school cafeteria. The original hardwood floors remain, as does the timber roof, said Thompson.

"This is the perfect avenue to get to know your neighbors," said Hernandez, who was eating a pulled pork sandwich when a reporter showed up to talk to him.

Spring Lake is an attractive community for many outsiders. Some have traveled from other parts of Florida while others have relocated from thousands of miles away.

Jim Griffin is a Tampa native. He moved to Spring Lake nearly four decades ago. He met his wife and eventually she married him and moved to the area.

Maureen Griffin is from Chile.

"Most people who move here do it because of the rural atmosphere," she said. "We don't want that to change. That's what brings people here."

It is a major reason why her husband relocated from Tampa. He hunted in the woods of Spring Lake as a young man.

To him, Spring Lake is developed enough.

"You used to not see but five cars an hour along this road," he said as he pointed to the highway. "On Sundays, you didn't see but maybe five the whole day."

Reporter Tony Holt can be reached at 352-544-5283 or wholt@hernandotoday.com.

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