Community Description
Short Description: Howey-in-the-Hills is 30 miles from Orlando and 70 miles from Tampa. This community on gently rolling terrain overlooking Little Lake Harris is literally older than the hills. Originally incorporated as Howey in 1925, after founder William J. Howey, the name was changed to the picturesque Howey-in-the-Hills a few years later at the suggestion of a sales manager's wife.
Howey accumulated 60,000 acres with dreams of turning it into a citrus empire. He called the area "The Florida Alps." And during the Florida land boom, he brought busloads and carloads of potential investors to town and entertained them at the Floridian Hotel, which he built in the 1924 to replace the tent city where tourists stayed.
The Floridian Hotel was blown up in the mid-1990s as part of a television movie featuring Hulk Hogan.
Local attractions include the 6,000-square-foot Howey Mansion, built by Howey in the 1920s, the old Floridian Country Club and Golf Course, started by Howey and renamed it the Mission Inn Golf and Tennis Resort, and the Sara Maude Mason Nature Preserve at the south end of Little Lake Harris. A boardwalk winds its way through local flora and fauna and ends with a little tower overlooking the lake.
Nearby communities include Astatula, FL (3 miles), Yalaha, FL (3.5 miles), Tavares, FL (6.5 miles), Ferndale, FL (8.5 miles), Silver Lake, FL (8.5 miles), Okahumpka, FL (9 miles), Minneola, FL (9.5 miles) and Leesburg, FL (10 miles).
Population: 1.057
Year of Incorporation: 1925
Location: Central Florida
Median Home Price: $169,820
Tax Rate: 5.445
Taxes Levied (per capita): $278.39
Total Area: 1.74 square miles
City Hall: Town of Howey-in-the-Hills
101 North Palm Ave, PO Box 67
Howey-in-the-Hills, FL 34737-0067
352.324.2290; 352.324.2126 Fax
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