Florida Family Learns Selling a Nudist Colony Isn't Easy

Florida real estate doesn't get much more niche than this: A fading nudist colony carved out of swamp and scrub is now on the market, but no one's jumping at the opportunity. The New York Times' Ronda Kaysen traveled to the Florida Naturist Park to get the story of what was, at its peak, a 220-acre "anything-goes" nudist community an hour northwest of Tampa. It was founded in 1959 by Thomas Ward Gulvin, a self-styled naturist bishop, convicted bigamist, and open racist who wrote whites-only rules into property deeds until the late '80s; he died in 1994, and his six surviving children are actively looking for a buyer.

Today, the Gulvin family is asking $2.5 million for the 58 acres they still own. It's a patchwork of lakes, a clubhouse, residential lots, and RV sites, all zoned for nudism and partially occupied by aging residents reluctant to leave. That zoning is part of the problem, says the listing broker for the park. "Real developers, they usually have one thing they develop—that's either subdivisions or they build houses or apartments," says Dayton Johnson. "None of those uses fit on this property." Read the full story for more, including details on how an effort to sell the property to a Quaker nudist who had dreams of creating a Christian nudist resort fell apart in 2007.