Aviation estate allows residents lead the high life
John Travolta has a thing for aeroplanes. He likes flying them. He likes hearing them. When he wakes up, he likes looking out the window and seeing his Gulfstream II jet and Boeing 707 in the front yard.
As it so happens, whenever Travolta steps out – say, to a movie set or one of his other homes in Maine or California – he hops into one of his jets, taxis on down the street to the community runway and lifts off, unfettered by autograph junkies, Sunday drivers or road hogs.
Ah, the joy of residing in Jumbolair Aviation Estates, an exclusive, 550-acre “fly-in community” with a runway – the largest, paved, private airfield in the US.
Once a home to African crocodiles, elephants, white rhinos and a 400lb gorilla named Mickey, Jumbolair is fast becoming a sanctuary for comfort creatures whose most common desire is to eat, sleep and play within shouting distance of their flying machines.
The idea of parking one’s wings next to one’s abode is hardly novel; there are roughly 400 airparks across the US where homes with private hangars are built around tarmacs and airstrips.
But some fly-in communities rise above the rest.
Carved into the hilly horse country of central Florida, this retreat markets itself as America’s “premier residential aviation community”. For day-trippers, it promises “extreme luxury”; for homebuyers, “a lifestyle and a dream that few people will ever experience”.
When it comes to amenities, it has the Nautilus Centre, a wet bar with billiard table, Olympic-sized pool, tennis centre, conference halls, 9,000 sqft ballroom, stables, and, for residents who walk their stallions daily, several hundred acres of untouched pasture.
Along a sandy road lined with monstrous, 200-year-old oaks stands a white, old South-style mansion decorated with fine-art antiques: the Jumbolair Inn and Country Club.
What makes Jumbolair the envy of all airparks is not Travolta, though; it’s the runway.
This one is 7,550ft long, 250 ft wide, and elevated (to keep the runway from flooding during downpours). At the north end is a 10-acre landing pad. Along its sides, there is ground lighting, for night owls.
Taxiways lead to the pilots’ homes. (To avoid chance run-ins between aircraft and four-wheeled vehicles, each home-site has a street in the front and a taxiway at the rear.)
And, although commercial airports often build runways longer than 8,000ft, a private airstrip the magnitude of Jumbolair’s isn’t likely to be duplicated soon, the price tag being the main inhibitor.
