Harold S. Schwartz - The Villages, Florida USA - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

Harold Schwartz was a real estate developer who founded and grew The Villages retirement community in central Florida from a 400-unit mobile home park in the early 1980's to a sprawling active-lifestyle retirement community with 36,000 residents at the time of his death in 2003. (The still-growing population has expanded to over 100,000 as of 2019.) His statue is in the Spanish Springs Town Square.

This realistic likeness portrays Mr. Schwartz wearing an unbuttoned jacket, a spread collar dress shirt open at the top, trousers, and loafer shoes. His friendly expression includes a slight smile. His weight is resting on his straightened right leg; his left leg is bent and slightly forward; both feet are flat on the ground. His left hand is inside the pants pocket. His right arm is held slightly away from his side with a forward-facing open palm making a "Welcome" gesture.

The life-sized statue, cast in bronze, is mounted on a pink granite plinth approximately three feet wide, long, and tall. The plinth is on a five foot square base of concrete and within a shallow reflecting pool. There are eight uplights, two per side, embedded on the upper surface of the base. Eight small water jets among the lights create a gentle fountain. (Neither feature was activated at the early morning time I visited; they are turned on later in the day and operate until 10:00pm daily.) Beneath Mr. Schwartz's feet on the northwest face of the plinth is bronze plaque which reads:

HAROLD S.
SCHWARTZ
•
FOUNDING FATHER
•
THE VILLAGES

The statue and quarter round pool are on the north corner of the plaza. The straight northwest and northeast edges are bound by a low chain and bollard barrier in black metal. The southern curve is abutted by an arc-shaped pergola of russet brown wood and more of the low chain and post stanchions. The bottom of the pool has a mottled aquamarine finish.

Sources:
Lady Lake Historical Society
South Florida Sun-Sentinel obituary, "Harold Schwartz, 93, Founded The Villages" (12/25/2003)

URL of the statue: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
You must have visited the site in person, not online.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   03/15/2019 hart612 visited it