Beyond Carl Boozer Road, a dirt driveway leads to a metal gate on the way to the Boozer-Garrett 300-acre homestead.
Coyote skulls sit atop gateposts along the driveway. Plowed under citrus groves lie to the east and west along the way to another gate separating Sharron Garrett’s home from a herd of cattle.
Beyond that gate, the home of David and Sharon Garrett is camouflaged by exotic trees and flanked by greenhouses full of flowering orchids.
And not a car nor truck motor can be heard, at least for now.
Sharon Garrett’s way of life on the family’s multi-generational agricultural land near Haines City is under threat from at least two proposed routes for a new toll road that could bifurcate the Boozer-Garrett land for a stretch of the Central Polk Parkway East.
Sharon Garrett and her husband, David, grow award-winning orchids in greenhouses they fear will be cleared for the Central Polk Parkway East. Two of the proposed routes converge and travel, as one, directly over their 300-acre homestead, purchased by her father in 1947.
During a visit to the nearly 300 acres on April 11 by a Ledger reporter, Sharon Garrett had a map of four proposed routes laid out on a banquet table in one of the houses on the property.
Looking over the map, she explained her and her husband’s worries since the Florida Turnpike Enterprise publicly unveiled the proposed parkway routes in January.
“When they tell you there are four alternatives, there are not four alternatives,” she said. “There is only one, which is over us.”
Route A would be a very costly route for toll road construction because the land along that possible segment has recently been developed for homes and subdivisions, she said.
And route D is a wooded area with towering powerlines and the route would run too close to conservation land.
The Florida Department of Transportation’s possible routes for a eastern extension of the Central Polk Parkway. This portion of the map shows the area from south of Haines City to its various proposed connections to Interstate 4.
That leaves routes B and C, she said, which converge north of Dundee and travel over the Garretts’ property, their house and their acres of soon-to-be replanted citrus groves, woods and pasture.
Either of those alphabetized routes would potentially result in the taking of a sizable ribbon of their property.
“As to whether they take our house, I don’t know,” she said. “Or if they cut off access to our house, I don’t know.”
The path then crosses TLC Reedy, a development near Horse Creek, goes behind Sand and Silica and comes out onto a two-lane stretch of U.S. 17/92 near Ernie Caldwell Boulevard, Garrett said. Then the route goes another 3 miles to Ronald Regan Parkway to get to Poinciana Parkway.
Sharon Garrett has not given up her fight to keep bulldozers away from what she considers one of the only remaining little bits of paradise in Polk County’s northeast.
Cattle graze in a pasture with a subdivision in the background as urbanization and a toll road threaten the way of life at the Boozer-Garrett land.
Her last in-person meeting with the state agency planning the parkway on April 17 did not go well.
“They are coming over both houses (hers and her mother’s) and up the middle,” she said. The acreage has homes for the Garretts, and Sharon’s mother and brother. “They do not care even though they say they do.”
This was not the first time she has met with the state transportation agency. She met with them in January 2024 and then again at the alternative corridor evaluation meeting. “In 2024, I was told my wanting to talk about routes was premature,” she said.
The Turnpike Enterprise held a virtual meeting to roll out the four potential routes on Jan. 17 this year, which fell within a previously released study area, a swath of land stretching from west of Lake Wales toward U.S. 17-92 north of Davenport.
Fast forward: The Turnpike Enterprise will hold informational meetings May 5 and May 7 for the Alternative Corridor Evaluation of the Central Polk Parkway East.
The Turnpike Enterprise did not respond to phone messages left by a reporter requesting an interview for this report.
A 10-acre lake is among the natural features on the nearly 300 acres of the Boozer-Garrett property.
A frustrated Garrett said, “They want to go this way to connect to the (Toll Road) 429, even though they will bring a road down from the ChampionsGate area near the (County Road) 532 to the Poinciana Parkway/538 at Ronald Reagan. It will be called the Poinciana Connector.
They do not want to co-locate along the Cypress Parkway to the east to the Poinciana Parkway/538 at Solivita Boulevard, which is the route she prefers. But it does not appear among the four routes proposed.
However, another toll road is in the early planning stages, called the Southport Connector, that would run from the Florida Turnpike under Lake Toho thru Poinciana to the 538/Poinciana Parkway toll road, she said. So if they were to take the route she prefers, traffic could go to the turnpike from Haines City. But the reluctance she has met brings out the frustration in her voice.
The Central Florida Expressway Authority is planning a toll road from Poinciana, south of Lake Toho, to the Florida Turnpike.
“They would rather build seven new miles of road versus four miles along the Cypress Parkway because they say my route would be too far east and not have enough trips,” Garrett said.
Recently she recalled a car ride that way to Loughman for a plant sale with very light traffic, she said. And friends also use that way to avoid traffic congestion.
When State Road 429, another toll road, first opened, its entrances were a long way from people, and now there are apartment buildings all along it and at Avalon Road, she said.
Sharon Garrett points out the Boozer-Garrett property on a Florida Enterprise Turnpike map showing four possible alignments for the Central Polk Parkway East.
The other reason they did not like the Garretts’ route is it would “co-locate through a conservation area,” Garrett said. But she added, the conservation area has already been damaged by the Cypress Parkway.
Citing a veterinarian friend for the observation, she said the Florida Department of Transportation is not solving the problem of congestion, it is just moving traffic over 3 miles and dumping it into an already existing parking lot ― Interstate 4.
Nor did her letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis help her cause.
“I live in the Last Little Bit of Paradise …,” her letter began.
“My dad bought the homeplace after WWII with his combat pay as a P-51 pilot, around 1947. My parents’ home is on the west side, my husband & I live on the east side and my brother lives on the north side.
“Over the years acreage was added by 2 family corporations, my husband & I & my brother, until we have almost 300 acres. Our land backs up to conservation land on the east.
“I have lived on this land since 1951 (73 years & my husband has lived here for 54 yrs).
David Garrett holds an orchid, which is one of hundreds of orchids including some award winners in his and his wife Sharon Garrett’s greenhouses. They fear they will lose their favorite pastime to make way for the Central Polk Parkway East.
“This place means a lot to us,” she wrote. “There is a lake, 3 creeks and lots of wildlife – foxes, deer, bobcats, lots of birds and more. My husband fishes, hunts coyotes and feeds the rest of the animals. Recently, there was an eagle sitting on the bridge railing. We also commercially grow orchids in 2 large double bay greenhouses.”
Unlike many other surrounding land owners, she wrote; “We have resisted selling out to developers.”
Back at the greenhouse, David Garrett summed up his predicament in a more serious vein.
“I haven’t decided how I’m leaving here, but probably feet first,” he said.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Haines City family fears 300-acre homestead is in danger from toll road