I received an email earlier this evening with some questions about Celebration. Instead of replying directly, I thought I’d share my answers here, as they may interest other people.

The gist of the email was that the sender has visited the Disney area and Celebration a few times, and is doing preliminary research on escaping the Garden State to warmer climes.

We moved to Celebration from Chester County, PA — Lionville, if you want to be pretty specific. Our 4bd house sat on 3/4 of an acre, surrounded by trees, and only 6 miles from work. Here in Celebration, we have a 3bd house with around the same square footage inside, but a postage stamp for a yard. This is what we signed up for. We were willing to trade private outdoor area for public, and 4 seasons for an oppressive summer that lasts 7 months.

It might not be for everyone. Remember, when you visit here, you’re in Vacation Mode: no work responsibilities, looser scheduling, probably eating out more than normal, and so on. If you live here, you have all the same life crap you did back home, and you’re adding tourist drivers to the equation.

I’m not trying to scare people away. The opposite, in fact. I want people to move here, but with realistic expectations about what life is like. All that said, allow me to answer some of this reader’s specific questions, and add some of my own observations.

• Do houses in Celebration have basements? No. Basements are not common in Florida because of the high water table and sandy soil. Even though I spent 30+ years in Florida before I moved to Pennsylvania, moving back was troublesome because we were moving from a basement house to a non-basement one. We unloaded extra junk on Craigslist before moving down, but we still struggle with having a “junky” garage from stuff that would’ve been stashed in the corner of a basement up North.

• How bad is it dealing with the Covenants? We’ve found the Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions quite reasonable here in Celebration. Most kinds of changes to the outside of your home need to be approved by the Architecture Review Committee (ARC). We built a fence last year. Upon request, a member of ARC visited our house before we submitted our plans and gave us pointers and advice for making a successful application. What kind of fence? Will it enclose your yard? Can you provide a sketch? Ok, thanks, we’ll let you know after the committee meeting. No big deal. To me, it’s an acceptable trade-off to living next to a pink house with a shoddy above-ground pool and overgrown grass.
• What are Association Fees like? What’s covered? We pay around $830/yr (billed quarterly) to the Homeowners Association. That allows access to the parks, any of the HOA pools (North Village, South Village, East Village, Lakeside Park downtown), tennis courts, basketball courts, and more. The HOA (formally known as the Celebration Residential Owners Association, or CROA) also hosts great events for residents during the year (see here for a list). Garbage collection is not covered by HOA dues; we pay around $250/yr for that.

If you’re moving from the Northeast, then remember: Florida does not have any State Income Tax. Nor am I aware of any Local Income Tax. You won’t need to buy heating oil, either.