Lehigh Acres Real Estate

Lehigh Acres is a residential community located in Lee County east of Fort Myers. The community offers affordable housing dominated by single-family homes sited on quarter and half acre lots. It was developed as a platted community without the monthly fees associated with gated communities and homeowners associations.  Read more about Lehigh Acres real estate. 

Lehigh Acres Homes For Sale

More About Lehigh Acres Real Estate

Location

Just 12 miles east of Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres is a diverse community of 80,000 residents. Similar to other communities bordering the Gulf of Mexico, Lehigh Acres is known for its ponds, lakes, and a network of canals. It is bordered to the north by Alva, to the northwest by Buckingham and to the southwest by Gateway.

Recreation

With 175 miles of canals, fresh and salt water, and 16 well-stocked lakes, Lehigh Acres is ideal for water sports enthusiasts. With the miles of canals that wind their way into many neighborhoods, residents can park their boats on the edge of their backyards and venture out on the water at their leisure. The easy access to the Gulf, the Caloosahatchee River and nearby barrier islands provide additional opportunities for fishing with an abundance of snapper, snook, trout, grouper, and mackerel.

For a change of pace, Lehigh is also the site of several championship golf courses, many of which offer challenging play as well as an onsite bar and restaurant. The Westminster and Majestic are local favorites, boasting recent updates and renovations.

Nature lovers delight in the parks and preserves sprinkled throughout the community available for hiking, camping and kayaking. Select trails meander alongside bodies of water fringed with mature, lush trees home to many native birds. A popular family destination, the Lehigh Acres Park is a 20-acre complex that includes tennis courts, baseball, and softball fields as well as a community pool. The park updated its playground and added new picnic pavilions as well as ENERGI exercise stations in 2011.

History

Lehigh Acres boasts a colorful history, originally developed in the mid-1950s as a cattle ranch and tax shelter by a Chicago marketing tycoon, Lee Ratner. After the cattle business faltered, Ratner joined forces with several Florida developers to market parcels of Florida sunshine and soil for $10 down, catering largely to the post-World War II families in the American midwest. Ultimately the team launched pre-designed houses as options to accompany the parcels of land that served as the core product of the newly formed Lehigh Corporation.

The sandy terrain of the Lucky Lee Cattle Ranch slowly evolved into a community ideal for snowbirds and their families with The Charmed Circle as its centerpiece. A landmark in downtown Lehigh, the Charmed Circle showcased the newest model homes and features in a roundabout. Since then, the boundaries of the community have expanded to cover 61,000 acres including a former Army Air Forces training base and airfield.

Lehigh benefited from the real estate boom of the early 2000s with a surge of new homes, peaking at more than 7,500 new homes built in 2006 alone. With the recession in 2008, property values fell to their lowest point, later climbing again by 2014 to rival values in other neighboring communities in Southwest Florida. Today Lehigh is an ideal retreat for families or seniors seeking an affordable retirement option.