Developer of Florida retirement hub The Villages dies at 77

By Letitia Stein TAMPA Fla. (Reuters) - Gary Morse, a developer who transformed a small Florida mobile home park into a massive retirement community, has died at age 77, the Villages Daily Sun reported on Thursday. The Villages, home to some 100,000 residents, has become one of the nation's fastest-growing communities. It touts nearly 600 holes of golf, more than 100 restaurants and a jam-packed schedule of recreational activities, the newspaper noted. The retirement destination sprawls across 40 square miles in the north central part of the state, about an hour from Orlando. “Dad never sought the limelight,” the Morse family said in a statement to the community newspaper, which did not identify the cause of his death on Wednesday night. “He was content to stay in the background and enjoy seeing Villagers revel in this amazing lifestyle of their adopted hometown." A major Republican donor, Morse saw The Villages emerge as a conservative powerhouse in the nation's largest swing state. He helped to shape the community into a campaign trail must-stop for Republican politicians. “Gary Morse looked at the pastures and prairies of Florida's interior and saw the American Dream," U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, said in a statement. "Not just for him, but for the tens of thousands of seniors who have been able to enjoy their golden years and continue to live them to their fullest." The development was a small community of mobile homes when Morse took over in 1983. The Morse family pledged to keep his values alive. "While he was a friend and adviser to captains of industry, presidents and heads of state, he never lost focus on this community and making it the greatest retirement development in the world,” they said in a statement, the newspaper reported. (Reporting by Letitia Stein; Editing by Eric Beech)