On January 28, 1962, Bryant Skinner put pen to paper and sketched his vision of a premier, gated, golf community that would become Deerwood (see fig. 1). He planned for a rural Florida setting that incorporated curved narrow roadways, grand vistas, distinctive eclectic houses on large lots, lakes, and spacious open common areas surrounding a country club that would provide golf, tennis and swimming.

Deerwood has become that and more (see fig. 2). The residential component has developed to include the gamut of home ownership from condominium living through zero lot line homes, a courtyard community, countryside lifestyle and single family residence to twenty-acre estates. The country club has grown into a first-class institution with all of the above amenities plus a new fitness center. In addition, Deerwood provides with-in-the-gates, a convenient entrance to a topnotch primary and secondary school and a recreation area that incorporates a unique playground, basketball court, ball field and pavilion.

In order to preserve this distinctive character, every unit in Deerwood was endowed with a comprehensive set of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&Rs). It is the CC&Rs that allow the community at large to maintain standards, with the aim of preventing a few residents from lowering the property value for all. They enable us to control and limit access to Deerwood, thereby preventing unwelcome door-todoor solicitation and unwanted through traffic on our streets. The (CC&Rs) also empower the Deerwood Improvement Association with the authority to provide recreational amenities, maintain roads, easements, drainage, common areas, and the infrastructure, which serves and supports our community. 

Due to a statute passed by the Florida Legislature in 1963 called the Marketable Record Title Act (MRTA) the Deerwood (CC&Rs) may be in jeopardy of being voided or may have already been voided in some units. In order to reinstate and/or preserve the (CC&Rs), we have hired a law firm that specializes in this area of the law. That law firm has recommended the Deerwood Improvement Association Board approve a motion by a two-thirds majority (the aforementioned was accomplished at a special session on Monday January 6, 2006) for units seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, the courtyards, Deerwood Courtyards Estates, Estates of Deerwood, Estates of Deerwood Phase II, Estates of Deerwood Phase III, Deerwood Pointe and four parcels. The passage and subsequent written notification to the Florida Department of Community Affairs should preserve the (CC&Rs) in those units. 

Because there is a strong suspicion that the (CC&Rs) in units one, two, three, four, five and six have already been extinguished, our attorney has recommended we proceed with a different course of action for those units. All homeowners in units one through six will need to vote to reinstate their (CC&Rs). A simple majority within each unit will be required to approve the reinstatement of the Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions for that particular unit. Therefore, all homeowners in units one through six should expect to receive instructions on how to proceed in the near future. We are planning to have the vote prior to our annual meeting on the 30th of March. 

Sincerely,

Les Beadling
President