Portico: California styling meets Old Florida

COURTESY RENDERING Artist's rendering of the Santa Clara Model at Portico off Buckingham Road in east Lee County. California meets Florida at one of the newest real estate developments in Fort Myers.

British-based home builder Taylor Woodrow is building California mission style homes in its 1,178-unit Portico development on Buckingham Road

"We wanted to get away from the Mediterranean-type Florida architecture," said Tim Diers, director of sales and marketing for Taylor Woodrow's Portico development. "People are tired of it."

It's also a bit Old Florida, Diers said.

"When you get away from the coast things change, they're less tropical, more Old Florida. It's similar to California," he said.

Nestled on nearly 600 acres in east Lee County, Portico will have 120 townhomes and 1,058 single-family homes from builders such as Morrison Homes, Taylor Woodrow and Cape Coral-based Aubuchon Homes.

Currently, workers are putting the finishing touches on the entrance and gatehouse. Two models will be completed later this month and the clubhouse will break ground next month.

COURTESY RENDERING Artist's rendering of clubhouse at Protico. Developer Taylor Woodrow expect to begin construction of this facility next month. That will be the heart of the community, with a resort pool, fitness center, multi-purpose fields, basketball and tennis courts.

Taylor Woodrow calls these developments "non-amenitized" communities - without golf courses, or restaurants or tennis clubs. That keeps common fees down, Diers said.

Single-family home buyers can choose from lots as small as 55-feet wide up to 75-foot wide properties.

The company just began sales last month and is "getting a little bit of traffic," Diers said.

The intense marketing will begin in the fall, he said.

So why does a developer move out to eastern Lee County to build when so much inventory exists closer to town?

"It's a growing area and we wanted to jump ahead a little bit and get things started," Diers said.

Portico joins other mega-developments: River Hall, a 2,000-acre Land- Mar development off State Road 80, and Bonita Bay's Verandah project on SR 80 near SR 31. Taylor Woodrow

>>One of Europe's largest homebuilders, Taylor Woodrow builds over 13,000 homes worldwide each year - and is currently involved in more than 100 active developments throughout Florida, California, Arizona, Texas and Canada. In 2006, Taylor Woordrow delivered 4,492 homes in the U.S. and Canada - including 835 in Florida - for revenues of more than $2.2 billion. The average selling price of those homes was $428,000. The British-based company employs nearly 1,000 people in North America.