Manicured lawns. Elegant brick homes on spacious lots. One of the Southeast's top-ranked golf-course country clubs. This is Golden Eagle, a prime location in Killearn Lakes Plantation with a capacity of about 900 home sites that continues to attract both retirees and younger white-collar professionals from all parts of the United States, and golfing members from as far as Europe and Egypt.

Resident Tom Ertl, who has built more than a dozen homes in Golden Eagle ranging in price to what he called "$600,000 and up," termed it "one of the premier subdivisions in the county." Andy Lawley, vice president for marketing at the Golden Eagle Golf & Country Club, saw it as "a wonderful community to live in and to get to know each other, because so many of us have common interests."

"It's just beautiful out here," said Robert Walker, a transplanted Atlanta financial-planning executive and president of the Golden Eagle Neighborhood Association. "Last night we went out walking and saw four deer. Two days ago, we scared up about a dozen turkeys. My goal (as association president) is to make sure this neighborhood retains its rural, natural quality. Ninety nine percent of my neighbors feel the same way."

Originally platted in the mid-1980s by developer J.T. Williams as an upscale addition to Killearn Lakes Plantation, Golden Eagle has attracted an almost exclusively upper-income population that enjoys the privacy and perquisites of their gated, security-conscious neighborhood.

"It's really an entity unto itself," said Tom Birschbach, executive director of the Killearn Lakes Plantation Homeowners Association (KLPHA). "We began administering them out of this office in 1992, but they also have their own homeowners' association whose building standards are much higher than those in the rest of Killearn Lakes."

As Birschbach explained it, J.T. Williams had Golden Eagle separately chartered as a corporation in order to furnish residents with privately maintained roads and lakes (four lakes dot the community: Diane, Monkey Business, Blue Heron and Petty Gulf), as well as a security force that oversees the entrance gate and patrols the self-contained streets.

Homes average about 3,000 square feet overall, according to Birschbach and Walker, but both cost and size jump dramatically for golf-course or lake sites. And, while minimum square footage throughout the community is about 30 percent higher than in adjoining KLPHA neighborhoods, few homes come in at anywhere near the minimum.

Homeowner assessments to pay for Golden Eagle's safety and other amenities come to $465 yearly with an annual cost-of-living increase, Birschbach said. Residents also pay an additional $60 in yearly dues to the Killearn Lakes association. In return, they keep up their own roads and lakes, while enjoying such neighborhood social activities at the country club as picnics, fishing contests, Easter egg hunts and fireworks on the Fourth of July.

The country club attracts an estimated 75 percent of Golden Eagle's residents who take great pride in their mostly brick homes that line the shady streets.

Combining work and play
"Most of the homes out here are built with upscale luxury touches in electronics, appliances and flooring," said builder Tom Ertl. Many also have three-car garages to provide space for their golf carts, he said. As far as future growth, "I'm sure it will continue because this area is becoming increasingly convenient as the city moves toward us," Ertl said. "Right now, a lot of our residents don't have to go south of I-10. Ever. They have what they want right here."

Among the stores already convenient to Golden Eagle, residents listed Publix and Winn Dixie on nearby Thomasville Road. A full range of restaurants and specialty stores marks Carriage Gate, Village Commons, Market Square and Timberlane Plaza, along with other shopping centers.

Golden Eagle is zoned for Killearn Lakes Elementary School, Deerlake Middle School, and Chiles High School.