Harold Schwartz (March 13, 1910 – December 22, 2003) was an American businessman and real estate developer who along with his son, H. Gary Morse, founded the active adult

retirement community A retirement community is a residential community or housing complex designed for older adults who are generally able to care for themselves; however, assistance from home care agencies is allowed in some communities, and activities and socializ ...

The Villages, Florida The Villages is a census-designated place (CDP) in central Florida. It is in Sumter and Marion counties, Florida, United States. It shares its name with a broader master-planned age-restricted community that spreads into portions of Lake Count ...

Early life

Harold Schwartz was born March 13, 1910, in

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, the son of Louis and Katherine Schwartz. Harold was Jewish.

Career

In the 1930s, Schwartz worked as a travelling salesman, selling products for his father's tailoring company until it was forced to close due to the

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. In 1947, Schwartz began purchasing radio stations, including several "border buster" stations in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. Many of these stations, located just across the border with the United States, operated without proper licenses. Schwartz is credited with the discovery of famed

disk jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile D ...

and radio personality

Wolfman Jack Robert Weston Smith (January 21, 1938July 1, 1995), known as Wolfman Jack, was an American disc jockey active from 1960 till his death in 1995. Famous for his gravelly voice, he credited it for his success, saying, "It's kept meat and potatoes ...

, employing him at his

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, radio station in the late 1960s. In the 1950s and 60s, Schwartz operated a thriving mail-order real estate business, selling plots of land in

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and

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

to customers around the country until federal law banned the practice in 1968.

Founding of The Villages

In the early 1970s, Schwartz turned his focus from mail-order land sales to land development. Schwartz, along with business partner Al Tarrson, founded Orange Blossom Gardens, a mobile home park in Central Florida located off of US Highway 27-441. Using land leftover from his mail-order land sales business, Schwartz began selling homes to retirees. Initially, sales were slow, with only about 400 homes being built in the original development. In 1983, Schwartz, unsatisfied with the progress, bought out Tarrson's interest in the business and brought in his son, advertising executive, H. Gary Morse as a business partner. Together, Schwartz and Morse increased sales at Orange Blossom Gardens exponentially and created interest in the growing community. In 1992, the name of the development was changed from Orange Blossom Gardens to

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Personal life

In 1934, Schwartz married Mary Louise Lee. Together, the two shared a son, Harold, and a daughter, Mary. The two later divorced. In 1946, Schwartz married Bernice Newman. Together they shared a son, Richard. Schwartz died on December 22, 2003, at the age of 93. His ashes were interred in the base of a statue depicting him at Spanish Springs Town Square in

Lady Lake, Florida Lady Lake is a town in Lake County, Florida, United States. The population was 13,926 at the 2010 census. As of 2019, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 16,020. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford Metropolitan Stati ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwartz, Harold S. 1910 births 2003 deaths People from Sumter County, Florida Businesspeople from Florida Businesspeople from Chicago 20th-century American businesspeople American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent American Jews