Corporate Office Team
Sam Rodgers
Founder/Owner
58 years with Sam
Sam Rodgers started the company in 1968. Within ten years of graduating from the University of Florida, he and his wife Mary founded Sam Rodgers Enterprises in Lakeland, retailing manufactured housing with Mary alongside him as Secretary and Treasurer. It was later recognised as one of the top ten retailers of its kind in Florida.
The decision the business still runs on came in 1988. Rather than keep selling a factory-built product, he moved to developing the land and building the homes on it — starting with Sandpiper Golf & Country Club in Lakeland, where 232 homes sold in the first year of a 1,169-lot community. Estates of Beacon Woods (500 homes) and Legacy of Leesburg (999) followed.
From 1994 the work moved to south-west Florida: Pelican Pointe Golf & Country Club (1,325 homes), GreyHawk Landing and GreyHawk Landing West (1,271) and Gran Paradiso (2,000). His son Richard joined full-time as Vice President straight out of Florida Southern College, and is the company's president today. Three generations of the family have now worked in the business.
What a buyer meets is what he decided in 1988: that this company develops the community as well as the house, and puts the family name on both. Published under his name on the company's About page — "The quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten."