Live in Rosemont
The amenity this neighborhood was planned around closed in 2014, and what the city approved to replace it is 5,650 homes on the old fairways.
Rosemont is the ring of houses, townhomes and condominiums wrapped around Lake Orlando in the north-west corner of the city, platted section by section in the late 1970s and built out over the twenty years after that. Its organizing amenity was an 18-hole golf course, and the course closed in 2014. The vacant land was bought in July 2019, and on 6 December 2021 the City Council rezoned the 128 acres it sits on to a planned development allowing up to 5,650 homes and 350,000 square feet of non-residential space. A first phase of up to 1,600 homes on 38.5 acres was approved in September 2022 and redrawn in 2024, after a survey found the site's largest pond exceeded 30 feet in places, a borrow pit left over from the original construction of Rosemont. None of it is built yet. What a buyer here is choosing is a settled 1970s neighborhood with a city gymnasium and pool in the middle of it, next to a very large approved redevelopment site, on a schedule nobody can give you.
Built around a golf course that is no longer there
The City of Orlando's neighborhood 72, roughly 1,167 acres wrapped around Lake Orlando, reaching west toward Pine Hills, north toward Lockhart and east to North Orange Blossom Trail. Lake Orlando Parkway is the circumferential road that ties it together.
Rosemont is about 1,167 acres of houses, townhomes and condominiums wrapped around Lake Orlando in the north-west corner of the city, and it is one of the few Orlando neighborhoods drawn all at once rather than grown. Section 9 was platted in October 1977, when the road circling the lake was still called Lake Wekiwa Parkway; Section 10 followed in March 1978, by which point both the lake and the road had been renamed for the city. Most of the housing dates from between then and the end of the 1990s, half a century younger than College Park to the south, and it has what College Park does not: curved streets, larger lots and a lake big enough to plan around.
The amenity that organized it is gone. The Lake Orlando Golf Club ran 18 holes from the early 1970s until it closed in 2014, and the land sat vacant until July 2019, when the owner who would take it through the city's planning process bought it. On 6 December 2021 the City Council redesignated the 128 acres to Urban Village, rezoned it to Planned Development with the Wekiva Overlay, and approved up to 5,650 homes and up to 350,000 square feet of non-residential space on the old fairways. A first phase of up to 1,600 homes and 150,000 square feet, in four buildings on 38.5 acres, was approved in September 2022 at a density of 41.5 homes per acre. That is a serious number in a neighborhood of single-family lots.
What no source will give you is a date. The plan has already been redrawn once: a survey found the site's large pond exceeded 30 feet in places, deep enough that the city file reads it as a borrow pit dug for the original construction of Rosemont, and the buildings, the spine road and the central park all had to move off it. That amendment was determined in July 2024. Nothing has been built. The city also requires school concurrency to be settled before permits issue, and how several thousand approved homes would be absorbed by Orange County Public Schools has not been published. The approval is a real entitlement on an uncertain schedule, and it should be priced as one.
What is here now is public, and it is more than most of this metro has. The Rosemont Neighborhood Center on Rose Bay Drive holds a swimming pool, a fitness center, tennis courts, a soccer field, a computer lab and a playground, and in 2021 the city added a gymnasium with a 94 foot by 50 foot hardwood floor, rooftop solar and LED lighting, certified LEED Gold. Programs for residents aged 55 and over are free. Rosemont Elementary is inside the neighborhood too. None of that is conditional on anything being approved.
The practical position is inland and high. A City of Orlando address here is charged 18.0878 mills for the 2025 tax year, and at a USGS-measured 82.0 feet above sea level and forty miles from the coast, the risk that decides an insurance quote is wind rather than the storm surge that organizes the Miami and Tampa pages on this site. What Rosemont trades for the land it gets is distance: downtown is a ten-mile drive, the nearest full supermarket is about three miles south on Orange Blossom Trail, the nearest walkable commercial street is Edgewater Drive in College Park, and there is no rail. The Wekiva Overlay on the development site is there because this ground drains north-west toward the Little Wekiva.
- Read Ordinance 2021-74 and the 2022 phase one master plan yourself, rather than a listing's summary of them
- Ask what the property looks onto if phase one is built at 41.5 homes per acre
- Get a wind mitigation report before offering; on stock this age it moves the premium more than the price does
- Confirm whether the address is City of Orlando or unincorporated Orange County, because the millage differs
- A condominium of three habitable stories or more owes Florida's milestone inspection and reserve study; ask for both
- Freshwater flooding here is a lot-by-lot question, so get a flood quote on the specific property
How Rosemont got here
- 1977Rosemont Section 9 is platted north-west of College Park, and the road that circles the lake is still called Lake Wekiwa Parkway.
- 1978Section 10 is platted in March, and by then both the lake and the parkway carry the Orlando name instead.
- 2014The Lake Orlando Golf Club closes after more than forty years, and the course the neighborhood was planned around goes out of use.
- 2019The defunct golf and country club land is acquired in July by the ownership that will take it through the city's planning process.
- 2021The city opens a new gymnasium at the Rosemont Neighborhood Center, certified LEED Gold, with rooftop solar and a full-size hardwood basketball floor.
- 2021On 6 December the land is redesignated Urban Village, rezoned to Planned Development with the Wekiva Overlay, and approved for up to 5,650 homes and 350,000 square feet of non-residential space on 128 acres.
- 2022City Council approves the first phase in September: up to 1,600 homes and up to 150,000 square feet of non-residential space in four buildings on 38.5 acres.
- 2024A bathymetric survey finds the site's big pond exceeds 30 feet in places, a borrow pit left from the original construction of Rosemont, and the first phase is redrawn around it.
Lake Orlando, and the fairways nobody plays
Lake Orlando is the open space, and the city's own neighborhood layer puts the lake inside Rosemont. There is no continuous public path around the shore, so the walking route is Lake Orlando Parkway, the road that circles it. Rosemont Park on the eastern side and Rosemont Community Park beside the neighborhood center are useful rather than destinations. The largest green here is the closed golf course, private land under an approved development order.
What the map does not show: the nearest properly equipped park is outside the neighborhood. Lake Fairview Park on Lee Road runs to twenty acres of lit softball fields, sand volleyball, a playground and a boat ramp, just over a mile east.
Elsewhere in Orlando, not Rosemont
21 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 21 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are computed from a representative point in the neighborhood, using straight-line distance multiplied by a road factor and a tiered speed model: honest ranges, not routed times. Rosemont is a car neighborhood and the table reads accordingly, and the ring road means a trip to the far side of the lake is longer than the straight line suggests.
Every gym within reach
The anchor here is municipal rather than commercial. The Rosemont Neighborhood Center and Pool is a full city recreation facility inside the neighborhood. Outside it, the running route is the parkway.
- A 94 foot by 50 foot hardwood floor, opened in 2021, with rooftop solar and LED lighting
- Pool, fitness center, tennis courts, a soccer field, a computer lab and a playground on the same site
- Programs for residents aged 55 and over are free of charge
- Lake Orlando Parkway is the running loop, on sidewalk rather than a shoreline path
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Rosemont Neighborhood Center and Pool open | A city facility on Rose Bay Drive with a swimming pool, a fitness center, tennis courts, a soccer field, a computer lab and a playground. Its gymnasium, opened in 2021 and certified LEED Gold, carries a 94 foot by 50 foot hardwood floor. Programs for residents aged 55 and over are free. | 4–6 min |
| Lake Orlando Parkway open | The road that circles the lake, and in practice the neighborhood's walking and running loop. There is no continuous shoreline path, so the route is the sidewalk. | 2–3 min |
| Rosemont Park open | A small city park on the eastern side, useful for a short circuit rather than a session. | 3–4 min |
| Lake Orlando Golf Club closed | The 18-hole course that gave the neighborhood its shape, closed in 2014. The land is now the approved RoseArts planned development, and the nearest public golf is Dubsdread in College Park. | 3–5 min |
The free option is the parkway and the two small city parks. Golf is not one: the nearest public course is now Dubsdread in College Park, about four miles south-east.
A zoned elementary inside the boundary, and questions above it
Rosemont Elementary sits at 4650 Point Look Out Road, inside the neighborhood, and is a zoned Orange County school with no lottery for addresses in its boundary. Above it the picture is less tidy: Lockhart Middle is nearest, north on Dr. Love Road, and Evans High is nearest, west on Silver Star Road, with Edgewater High in College Park the other one families here ask about.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Rosemont Elementary School | Orange County Public Schools | The public elementary school inside the neighborhood, at 4650 Point Look Out Road. Orange County assigns by address, so check the specific property rather than the neighborhood. |
| Lockhart Middle School | Orange County Public Schools | The middle school north of here, on Dr. Love Road. It sits in unincorporated Orange County, which changes nothing about the district: Orange County Public Schools is county-wide and the city line is not a school boundary. |
| Evans High School | Orange County Public Schools | The nearest public high school, west on Silver Star Road. |
| Edgewater High School | Orange County Public Schools | The College Park high school, further away but the one families on this side of the city often ask about. This guide does not assert which of the two a given Rosemont address is assigned to. Use the district's own boundary lookup. |
| Orange County's magnet and choice programs | Orange County Public Schools | Magnet and choice programs run county-wide alongside assignment, with an application window. Apply in it rather than relying on the catchment. |
| School concurrency for the RoseArts District | Orange County Public Schools | The city's approval requires school concurrency and capacity to be completed before permits are issued for the first phase. Several thousand approved homes have to be absorbed somewhere, and how that will be done has not been published. |
Orange County Public Schools is county-wide, so the city line is not a school boundary. This guide does not assert which middle or high school a given Rosemont address is assigned to. Check it in the district's own boundary lookup, and note that the RoseArts approval still has to clear school concurrency.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- Highs around 22 °C and lows near 10: the coolest and driest stretch of the year
- The parkway loop around the lake is comfortable at any hour of the day
- The outdoor pool is closed or on short hours; check the neighborhood center before you go
- The driest month on average, and the easiest for anything outdoors
- A good month to walk the old fairways and see for yourself what has and has not started
- Lake and pond levels are near their lowest, which is when a shoreline lot reads honestly
- Warming into the high twenties, with humidity back before the month ends
- Oak and pine pollen is at its worst, and the 1970s stock here has mature trees over it
- Spring break traffic reaches this side of the city mostly along Orange Blossom Trail
- Warm, still mostly dry, and the last month before the air changes
- Insurance renewals cluster before hurricane season opens
- Get a wind mitigation report; on housing built between 1977 and the 1990s it moves the premium more than the price does
- The rainy season usually begins in the second half of the month
- Afternoon thunderstorms become a daily fixture and the lake level starts to climb
- Central Florida is the most lightning-prone region in the United States
- Atlantic hurricane season runs 1 June to 30 November
- The city pool matters more in these four months than in the other eight combined
- Mature trees over 1970s roofs are a standing maintenance cost, not a decoration
- The hottest and wettest month, and outdoor life moves to early morning and after dark
- The air-conditioned gymnasium at the neighborhood center is the practical alternative to the parkway loop
- Storms run off hard here, and this corner of the city drains north toward the Little Wekiva
- Peak humidity and the start of the serious part of hurricane season
- Eighty-two feet above sea level and forty miles inland: the risk here is wind, not surge
- Lake and pond levels are at their highest, which is the month to look at a lakeside lot
- Statistically the peak of Atlantic hurricane activity
- Binding restrictions mean you often cannot buy a new policy with a named storm in the basin
- Hurricane Charley crossed the city in 2004, and that is the local reference rather than any coastal event
- The rains taper off and the humidity finally breaks
- Still hurricane season, and October storms have crossed the peninsula before
- The best month of the year for the parkway loop
- Hurricane season ends on 30 November and the dry season starts
- Comfortable enough to be outside all day again
- City budget and capital plans land in the autumn, which is where money for this side of Orlando either appears or does not
- Warm days, cool evenings and almost no rain
- The neighborhood center runs its winter schedule, and the free senior programs are the busiest part of it
- The pay-off for August
15 more photographs of Orlando and the region
Drawn from the site's shared, freely licensed Orlando photo library, not photographs of Rosemont itself. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 15 photographs.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images from the site's shared Orlando library, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. None of them is presented as a photograph of Rosemont.