About Us

About Us

Lehigh Acres Florida is a small community nestled on the east side of Lee County Florida. Initially Lehigh Acres Florida was developed as a retirement community, in recent years it has boomed with its home construction and ever increasing population.

*Lehigh Acres got its start in the mid 1950s when Chicago businessman Lee Ratner needed a tax shelter. He had sold his pest control business, and he faced the possibility of losing most of his earnings to the high capital gains tax of that era. Ratner heard that cattle was a good investment for people in his predicament, and he bought 18,000 acres (73 km²) of land in eastern Lee County and named it the Lucky Lee Ranch. After ranching for a while, and despite having no prior development experience, Ratner joined with Gerald H. Gould, a Florida advertising executive, Manuel Riskin, a Chicago CPA, and Edward Shapiro, a former Chicagoan who was in the real estate business in California, and began land sales at Lehigh Acres.

Gerald Gould was the president of the corporation that developed Lehigh Acres which began in business in 1954. He remained as president until the company was sold in 1972.

Since the days of Lucky Lee, the boundaries of Lehigh Acres have stretched to cover 61,000 acres (250 km²) and the pasture land where Ratner's cattle roamed has been divided into some 152,000 quarter acre (1,000 m²) and half-acre (2,000 m²) lots for housing, along over a thousand miles of roads. Strips of land along major thoroughfares, such as Homestead Road And Lee Boulevard, were set aside for commerce. In 1997, nearly 90% of Lehigh Acres' lots remained vacant.

In 1992, Lee County, with the cooperation of a new developer, declared Lehigh Acres to be blighted, which authorized its Community Redevelopment Agency to take steps towards improving infrastructure and planning elements neglected by the original developer.

Lehigh Acres Live is a community website which allows it’s member to join a forum, ask questions, disseminate important information and just have plain ole fun. Because of the great residents of Lehigh Acres, Lehigh Acres Live has grown into very successful website.

Lehigh Acres Live had been designated the Official Lehigh Acres Weed and Seed program from November 2008 to November 2009. The staff from the Lehigh Acres Live Corporation played a major role in working with the Media Relations Committee; our combined efforts resulted in the current official Lehigh Acres Weed and Seed website. It can be viewed at www.LehighAcresWeedandSeed.com.

*ref: www.wikipedia.com