'Lakewood Ranch — A Legacy of Living with the Land' is a fun history lesson

My confession today is about sinning in the waiting room for the doctor, or my mechanic, or my barber.

As an adult, I often looked down on the coffee table to check out my choices. There always was the 6-month-old People magazine with the address label scratched off. Next to it was an even older version of Better Homes & Gardens. There might even be an occasional Field & Stream.

While all those can be interesting, I would bypass them for another magazine that I would be discrete in picking up — Highlights.

I know, I know. It's a magazine for kids. But I loved the "Hidden Pictures" feature where you were asked to find nine bananas in a photo of a football game being played in a packed stadium. I couldn't help myself. "Gosh, I found eight. There's got to be one more banana out there."

In today's world, it can be tough for any business that utilizes a waiting room to find entertainment for its patients or customers. Sure, everyone has a cell phone, but people do, indeed, still enjoy reading material.

For those of you who want to find something meaningful to place on that table in the waiting room, I have a great choice for you. Oh, and if you want a conversation starter in your living room, this works in that environment as well.

Schroeder-Manatee Ranch has just released "Lakewood Ranch — A Legacy of Living with the Land," which it bills as prose that will help you "Share in the Legacy of Lakewood Ranch — a story grounded in the land, shaped by vision, and guided by care."

It's not so much a history of Lakewood Ranch as it is documentation of how the land it is built upon was developed in a way that mimics the evolution of Florida as a whole.

I asked Laura Cole, a senior vice president at Schroeder-Manatee Ranch why such a book would be an important read for those in our area.

"Florida has and will continue to welcome large numbers of people migrating here for the sun and lifestyle," Cole wrote in an email. "Lakewood Ranch attracts its fair share of newcomers from all corners of the U.S. and around the world. Many arrive from places where they have had deep multigenerational ties, and we want them to know they are joining a community with its own rich sense of history and longstanding respect for the land. Understanding the history deepens one’s connection to the place — whether you live here, work here, or invest in its future."

Ok, that's pretty deep.

And while all that is, indeed, true. I would say the book is just plain fun.

Cole and SMR President and CEO Rex Jensen were two of the main cogs who headed the book project. It would have been easy for them to write a book that would have made a Harvard grad race for a dictionary or would have left the average reader bogged down in a swamp of legal terms.

It could have taken on the feel of reading a medical paper or a government document.

But it didn't.

The book is broken down into sections, and not so much chapters. So if you aren't so interested in the Schroeder family history, you can skip ahead to "From Timber to Tomatoes."

If you don't want to read about "Diversification and Big Decisions," you go right to "The Right People at the Right Time."

Every page that you do stop to read, you learn sometime quickly, such as how Lakewood Ranch came upon its name. Or you can learn about how SMR planted 150,000 pine trees on a 235-acre tract of pasture to support the Florida Forest Industries' directive that encouraged farmers and ranchers to replant trees on idle land.

If you want to read about how the land advanced in terms of agriculture, there's plenty for you. If you are a people person, there are many stories of key figures who formed this community.

Oh, and the photos. I felt like I was strolling through a museum as I turned each page. The photos aren't Ansel Adams, but they are packed with raw emotion which makes an impression on the reader.

I guarantee that if you read "Lakewood Ranch — A Legacy of Living with the Land," you will discover why the first line of the book's introduction reads, "What does it mean to create a true sense of place?"

Cole stresses that SMR should be considered the author of the book and that it was constructed using the voices of "family members, community leaders, staff, and residents."

So why write it now?

Cole said the book was developed in collaboration with the Uihlein family, even though the Uihleins always have preferred to remain behind the scenes. Cole said the family felt as Lakewood Ranch headed into its fourth decade, it was time to chronicle both the community's evolution and the "deeper history of the land."

Cole said, "The book gives voice to the long arc of stewardship and vision that has resulted in a community the Uihlein family and its shareholders are very proud of."

Among the historic facts that come to light are:

*August Krug and August Uihlein, original founders of what would become the Schlitz Brewing Company, survived a burning, sinking ship when making a transatlantic voyage from Germany to the U.S. Kind of odd when you consider that Joseph Schlitz, the namesake of the Schlitz Brewing Company, later drown on a ship that sank.

*In 1910, the John Schroeder Land & Timber Company began buying thousands of acres of land in Florida, including land that would eventually become Lakewood Ranch, to produce wood for "Playskool" toys.

*In 1929, the stock market crashed, kicking off the Great Depression. The Uihlein family assumed the banknote from Schroeder in 1930, which resulted in the name Schroeder-Manatee Ranch.

*SMR became the second largest contributor of oranges to Tropicana and also had one of the largest aggregate mines in the country at the same time.

*The thought of a master-planned community was ignited in 1979 when the threat of an airport was imposed on SMR land.

The book was published by Advantage, which is the publishing arm of Forbes. It can be purchased for $29.99 on Amazon, at the Lakewood Ranch Information Center on Lakewood Main Street, or on Sundays at the Farmers Market in Waterside Place.

If you aren't sure it should sit on your own coffee table, give it a try in a waiting room. It will be the book sitting between the latest Lakewood Ranch Life and Highlights.