In the beginning: Meet the pioneers It’s where everyone will know your name -- at least that’s what Ave Maria’s early settlers hope
The tour of Henry and Roseann Knetter’s home began with their den. Like every other room in their one-story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Ave Maria, the Knetters filled it with objects dedicated to this world and the next.
In the beginning: Meet the pioneers
It’s where everyone will know your name -- at least that’s what Ave Maria’s early settlers hope
By Liam Dillon
Saturday, August 18, 2007
The tour of Henry and Roseann Knetter’s home began with their den. Like every other room in their one-story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Ave Maria, the Knetters filled it with objects dedicated to this world and the next.
Photo by Tristan Spinski / Daily News
Retired postmasters Henry and Roseann Knetter sit in their home in the Hampton Village development, a few blocks from the Ave Maria town center.
There was a bookcase with gilded copies of “The Canterbury Tales,” “The Divine Comedy” and “The Iliad” translated by the pope; a shelf with videos and DVDs profiling St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and a history of European art; a case with compact discs of Benny Goodman, Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and Gregorian chants.
Decorating the walls were five of the 40 paintings in their home, mainly landscapes and portraits collected from the Knetters’ trips to Spain and France and boat cruises.
“All of the artwork has a story for us,” said Roseann Knetter, 64.
Roseann and her husband, Henry, 84, were likely the type of residents that town founder Tom Monaghan and developer Barron Collier Cos. had in mind when they conceived the Ave Maria project.
The pair, who referred to themselves as “pioneers” for becoming one of Ave Maria’s first residents when they moved here in June, both worked as postmasters from Westchester County in New York before retiring.
The Knetters were attracted as much by Ave Maria’s Catholic religious backdrop as its plan to be a compact, self-sustaining community that would allow people to know each other’s names. The Knetters met one neighbor, Cecelia O’Shea, when she came to see if they needed anything during O’Shea’s shopping trip to Costco.
“The fact is that I wanted to walk to everything, including church,” Roseann Knetter said. “When I was a child, we would walk to every place we needed to go. I never forgot how good that felt.”
The Knetters’ street, Milano Street, is in the town’s Hampton Village development, a few blocks from the town’s center of soon-to-be-open shops and 100-foot oratory.
As of Aug. 1, Collier County building officials had issued 30 certificates of occupancy for residences in Ave Maria.
Paul Marinelli, president and CEO of Barron Collier Cos., said 250 properties have been claimed by future homeowners. Eventually Barron Collier Cos., fueled by primary home developer Pulte Homes, expects to build 11,000 homes on the town’s nearly 5,000 acres.
The Knetters paid $420,000 for their house. Like other current and future residents contacted for this story, they didn’t know how much they would pay in property taxes and special assessments, but were unconcerned about that cost.
From the Knetters’ porch one Friday this month, one could see neighbors’ cars in driveways, shiny black mailboxes and empty trash cans. Friday is collection day. At the end of the block, construction workers with cranes and hard hats finished off some of the remaining houses.
Inside their house, the secular mixed freely with the religious. Clocks chimed every 15 minutes. Their three Bichon Frise dogs — Prince, Blade and Heidi — roamed the tiled floors. Rosary beads sat next to a clock radio in the Knetters’ bedroom. On their neatly made blue-flowered bedspread, Roseann had laid a wooden crucifix that was from her mother’s casket when she died three years ago.
“There’s no point in putting it in a drawer,” she said.
Like other residents, the Knetters heard about the planned development through the media, and fell in love with the place after they toured the grounds. Being one of the first residents to live in Ave Maria has its challenges, the Knetters said, as they’re 35 miles from downtown Naples and currently without a supermarket, gas station or bank.
Dennis Longley, 49, who is renting a house on Milano Street with his wife, Gerri, 46, and four of his children, has no problem roughing it.
“I’ve said we’re going to be sleeping in a home that’s on a 5,000-acre campground,” said Longley, a superintendent for the contractor working on the town center.
Two of Longley’s children will attend the town’s K-12 private school in the Catholic tradition. The week before he moved, he switched his two boys from their Estero-area football program to Immokalee’s. He also recently learned a hard lesson about living on a “campground.”
“Ice cream from Winn-Dixie just doesn’t make it all the way back (home),” he lamented.
Longley is renting from Jim and Ann Longon, a Philadelphia-area couple who are so enthralled with the Ave Maria concept they’ve bought two homes. Jim Longon, 63, who owned a company that provided outsourced office spaces, learned about Ave Maria through Legatus, a Monaghan-founded organization for Catholic business leaders.
Photo by Tristan Spinski / Daily News
Henry and Roseann Knetter return to Ave Maria after making a shopping trip.
The idea of living in a community where he could take certain shared political, moral and religious values for granted was exciting for him.
“On the golf course all we talk about is whether abortion is OK or not,” Longon said. “My goal is to be able to elevate the discussion higher. Instead of struggling with the foundation, I can get up to the roof. Rather than yes or no, I can better find out why the church thinks the way it does.”
Longon believes controversy stirred by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups about the town’s religious leanings will only fuel Ave Maria’s development.
“I love what the ACLU is doing,” he said. “It’s like what happened with Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion’. It’s just going to spur people to move here. Without that, it’s just like the opening of a regular town.”
One future Ave Maria couple, George and Anisoara Sinclair, who are Greek Orthodox Christians, did have some reservations about moving to the town, even though they both got “goosebumps” from the excitement of taking the town tour.
Having lived in Romania when it was ruled by the Communist Party, Anisoara Sinclair, a 53-year-old nurse, had brief flashbacks to her youth.
“I was a little scared because Mr. Monaghan is very religious,” she said. “I was scared I might see nuns and monks on the street corners. I didn’t think they would force us to be a certain way, but make it hard for us not to be Catholic.”
Her husband quickly dispelled that concern.
“‘This is America,’ I told her,” said George Sinclair, a 57-year-old audiologist and also a Romanian immigrant. “That doesn’t happen here.”
Those concerns melted away as the couple continued to think about the project. After their house is ready in December, the Sinclairs, who now reside in North Naples, will attend services in the oratory and hope that being in Ave Maria will deepen their faith and continue to provide a vibrant lifestyle as they consider retirement.
“We felt like we belonged,” Anisoara Sinclair said.
“There was an emotional connection for us,” George Sinclair added. “It was like you see in the movies. Having a place in Ave Maria will be wonderful for us.”
They’ve already met their future neighbors, a young family. They can’t wait for the first barbecue.
44It’s where everyone will know your name -- at least that’s what Ave Maria’s early settlers hope
By Liam Dillon
Saturday, August 18, 2007
The tour of Henry and Roseann Knetter’s home began with their den. Like every other room in their one-story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Ave Maria, the Knetters filled it with objects dedicated to this world and the next.
Photo by Tristan Spinski / Daily News
Retired postmasters Henry and Roseann Knetter sit in their home in the Hampton Village development, a few blocks from the Ave Maria town center.
There was a bookcase with gilded copies of “The Canterbury Tales,” “The Divine Comedy” and “The Iliad” translated by the pope; a shelf with videos and DVDs profiling St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and a history of European art; a case with compact discs of Benny Goodman, Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and Gregorian chants.
Decorating the walls were five of the 40 paintings in their home, mainly landscapes and portraits collected from the Knetters’ trips to Spain and France and boat cruises.
“All of the artwork has a story for us,” said Roseann Knetter, 64.
Roseann and her husband, Henry, 84, were likely the type of residents that town founder Tom Monaghan and developer Barron Collier Cos. had in mind when they conceived the Ave Maria project.
The pair, who referred to themselves as “pioneers” for becoming one of Ave Maria’s first residents when they moved here in June, both worked as postmasters from Westchester County in New York before retiring.
The Knetters were attracted as much by Ave Maria’s Catholic religious backdrop as its plan to be a compact, self-sustaining community that would allow people to know each other’s names. The Knetters met one neighbor, Cecelia O’Shea, when she came to see if they needed anything during O’Shea’s shopping trip to Costco.
“The fact is that I wanted to walk to everything, including church,” Roseann Knetter said. “When I was a child, we would walk to every place we needed to go. I never forgot how good that felt.”
The Knetters’ street, Milano Street, is in the town’s Hampton Village development, a few blocks from the town’s center of soon-to-be-open shops and 100-foot oratory.
As of Aug. 1, Collier County building officials had issued 30 certificates of occupancy for residences in Ave Maria.
Paul Marinelli, president and CEO of Barron Collier Cos., said 250 properties have been claimed by future homeowners. Eventually Barron Collier Cos., fueled by primary home developer Pulte Homes, expects to build 11,000 homes on the town’s nearly 5,000 acres.
The Knetters paid $420,000 for their house. Like other current and future residents contacted for this story, they didn’t know how much they would pay in property taxes and special assessments, but were unconcerned about that cost.
From the Knetters’ porch one Friday this month, one could see neighbors’ cars in driveways, shiny black mailboxes and empty trash cans. Friday is collection day. At the end of the block, construction workers with cranes and hard hats finished off some of the remaining houses.
Inside their house, the secular mixed freely with the religious. Clocks chimed every 15 minutes. Their three Bichon Frise dogs — Prince, Blade and Heidi — roamed the tiled floors. Rosary beads sat next to a clock radio in the Knetters’ bedroom. On their neatly made blue-flowered bedspread, Roseann had laid a wooden crucifix that was from her mother’s casket when she died three years ago.
“There’s no point in putting it in a drawer,” she said.
Like other residents, the Knetters heard about the planned development through the media, and fell in love with the place after they toured the grounds. Being one of the first residents to live in Ave Maria has its challenges, the Knetters said, as they’re 35 miles from downtown Naples and currently without a supermarket, gas station or bank.
Dennis Longley, 49, who is renting a house on Milano Street with his wife, Gerri, 46, and four of his children, has no problem roughing it.
“I’ve said we’re going to be sleeping in a home that’s on a 5,000-acre campground,” said Longley, a superintendent for the contractor working on the town center.
Two of Longley’s children will attend the town’s K-12 private school in the Catholic tradition. The week before he moved, he switched his two boys from their Estero-area football program to Immokalee’s. He also recently learned a hard lesson about living on a “campground.”
“Ice cream from Winn-Dixie just doesn’t make it all the way back (home),” he lamented.
Longley is renting from Jim and Ann Longon, a Philadelphia-area couple who are so enthralled with the Ave Maria concept they’ve bought two homes. Jim Longon, 63, who owned a company that provided outsourced office spaces, learned about Ave Maria through Legatus, a Monaghan-founded organization for Catholic business leaders.
Photo by Tristan Spinski / Daily News
Henry and Roseann Knetter return to Ave Maria after making a shopping trip.
The idea of living in a community where he could take certain shared political, moral and religious values for granted was exciting for him.
“On the golf course all we talk about is whether abortion is OK or not,” Longon said. “My goal is to be able to elevate the discussion higher. Instead of struggling with the foundation, I can get up to the roof. Rather than yes or no, I can better find out why the church thinks the way it does.”
Longon believes controversy stirred by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups about the town’s religious leanings will only fuel Ave Maria’s development.
“I love what the ACLU is doing,” he said. “It’s like what happened with Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion’. It’s just going to spur people to move here. Without that, it’s just like the opening of a regular town.”
One future Ave Maria couple, George and Anisoara Sinclair, who are Greek Orthodox Christians, did have some reservations about moving to the town, even though they both got “goosebumps” from the excitement of taking the town tour.
Having lived in Romania when it was ruled by the Communist Party, Anisoara Sinclair, a 53-year-old nurse, had brief flashbacks to her youth.
“I was a little scared because Mr. Monaghan is very religious,” she said. “I was scared I might see nuns and monks on the street corners. I didn’t think they would force us to be a certain way, but make it hard for us not to be Catholic.”
Her husband quickly dispelled that concern.
“‘This is America,’ I told her,” said George Sinclair, a 57-year-old audiologist and also a Romanian immigrant. “That doesn’t happen here.”
Those concerns melted away as the couple continued to think about the project. After their house is ready in December, the Sinclairs, who now reside in North Naples, will attend services in the oratory and hope that being in Ave Maria will deepen their faith and continue to provide a vibrant lifestyle as they consider retirement.
“We felt like we belonged,” Anisoara Sinclair said.
“There was an emotional connection for us,” George Sinclair added. “It was like you see in the movies. Having a place in Ave Maria will be wonderful for us.”
They’ve already met their future neighbors, a young family. They can’t wait for the first barbecue.
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