MONTVERDE, Fla – Near the Montverde water tower along Lake Drive is where two longtime locals planted their roots decades ago.
“It’s just us,” Dan Davis said. “We’re the only ones on the street.”
Janet and Dan Davis met here, fell in love here, and after 56 years of marriage are now growing old in the small Lake County town.
“There used to be a long pier that went out into Lake Florence,” Dan said. “That’s where I met Janet.”
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“Was it in an instant spark,” asked anchor Justin Warmoth. “I had to fight her off,” Dan responded.
When Janet moved to Montverde with her family in 1951, the town’s population was around 300. She recalled moving into an old two-story house in the middle of an orange grove when she was 2 years old.
“We had a one-room schoolhouse for the first through the fourth grade,” Janet explained. “That’s what’s now town hall.”
More than 70 years later, it’s home to more than 1,700 people, which is a pretty modest rate in a popular pocket of Central Florida.
“Our elders and town council have tried their best to keep Montverde small almost to a fault,” Dan said. “They want to have control over these developers that come in. They want to have a little bit of a say so in what they build.”
While Montverde, which was incorporated in 1925, has been able to hold on to that small-town charm, other parts of Lake County are exploding with growth and changing by the day.
“It’s sad,” Janet said. “There’s so much stuff that’s gone now.”
“The Citrus Tower had just been completed, so we had to go up in it,” Dan added. “To look out over the Clermont area was an absolutely gorgeous thing to see. Just beautiful rolling hills of nothing but orange groves. Now it’s rooftops.”
As nearby cities like Clermont and Minneola, continue to expand closer to Montverde, the Davises are optimistic future generations will enjoy the same quality of life they’ve been able to experience.
“It’s almost built out,” Dan said. “I think it’ll remain a beautiful place to live and a beautiful place to raise children.”
Something else that’s changed significantly over the years is property values. The Davises even admit they wouldn’t be able to live in Montverde today with how expensive it’s become.
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