Gay life in Tallahassee for older crowd (non-students) (Miami, Sarasota: real estate, rent)

[eric1234]

What is Tallahassee like for a gay couple in their 50's? Would we encounter homophobia in a midtown / betton hills type neighborhood? What is there to do culturally? I know it is a beautiful city with a highly educated population, but will we be bored if we move here from CT?

There were three gay bars in Tallahassee last year and now there are none...What happened?

[GaugeEnterprisesLLC]

while i am not gay, I can speak as a Tallahasseean. it is a very liberal town. in fact I would say that 80% of the town is liberal...the newspaper is called "Tallahassee Democrat". It is not uncommon to see many same-sex couples out and about. and they would appear to be leading a non-harassed life. However it is still conservative enough where you would get additional attention from makingout/holding hands in certain clubs on certain days. i know there are several bars/clubs which keep a predominantly same-sex crowd on certain nites. cant recall any hate crimes occuring since i have lived here(since '85). Hope this helps

btw, 20% of population is college, so it is an entirely different city during the summer, when most of the students leave.

[TD*]

Originally Posted by GaugeEnterprisesLLC

while i am not gay, I can speak as a Tallahasseean. it is a very liberal town. in fact I would say that 80% of the town is liberal...the newspaper is called "Tallahassee Democrat". It is not uncommon to see many same-sex couples out and about. and they would appear to be leading a non-harassed life. However it is still conservative enough where you would get additional attention from makingout/holding hands in certain clubs on certain days. i know there are several bars/clubs which keep a predominantly same-sex crowd on certain nites. cant recall any hate crimes occuring since i have lived here(since '85). Hope this helps

btw, 20% of population is college, so it is an entirely different city during the summer, when most of the students leave.

Wrong Gauage, college students are not considered full time residents and are not figured into the population totals for the city.

You will like it here, Tallahassee has a well informed accepting population.

I see gay couples all the time, and nobody cares.

Come give it a try

[TallyPain]

I'm not gay, but I know of a club called Club Rayn which you might be interested in, ;]

[GaugeEnterprisesLLC]

Originally Posted by TD*

Wrong Gauage, college students are not considered full time residents and are not figured into the population totals for the city.

You will like it here, Tallahassee has a well informed accepting population.

I see gay couples all the time, and nobody cares.

Come give it a try

IT IS A COLLEGE TOWN = POPULATED BY STUDENTS.....COUNT THE # OF PEOPLE WALKING AROUND AND 20% ARE THERE FOR SCHOOL. i dont know what kind of point you are trying to make.

its not that difficult

[TallyPain]

Originally Posted by GaugeEnterprisesLLC

IT IS A COLLEGE TOWN = POPULATED BY STUDENTS.....COUNT THE # OF PEOPLE WALKING AROUND AND 20% ARE THERE FOR SCHOOL. i dont know what kind of point you are trying to make.

its not that difficult

1. It's NOT A town.

2. City population DOES NOT count in the city population, THEY ARE NOT Full time residents.

3. If you would like to include the WHOLE population with the schools, Tallahassee would have 230,000 People. The city has 177,000 people. Not
110,00.

Thank You

[007.5]

Originally Posted by eric1234

What is Tallahassee like for a gay couple in their 50's? Would we encounter homophobia in a midtown / betton hills type neighborhood? What is there to do culturally? I know it is a beautiful city with a highly educated population, but will we be bored if we move here from CT?

There were three gay bars in Tallahassee last year and now there are none...What happened?

I think a couple could live just about anywhere in the USA being gay , so long as the sexual intimacy takes place in private and a same-sex relationship isnt flaunted in public. I believe that would take care of the homophobia out there.

[AllenAtlanta]

Eric1234, my partner and I are also a professional gay couple in our 50's living in Atlanta. He was recently promoted with his company, which requires a transfer to Tallahassee sometime during the first 6 months of 2010. So we are in the process of beginning a move to Tallahassee, as I begin looking for a job there too. The people in the Tallahassee office of his company know we are a gay couple and suggested areas of the city that we might enjoy living in. Like many of the responses to your post, they told us that we would probably not find any real homophobia in any of the northern [Lakeshore (just north of I10 near Lake Jackson)] or north-east neighborhoods [Betton Hills (south of I-10), or Summerbrooke, Killearn, Golden Eagle (north of I10). However, they did tell us that we needed to be clear about the lifestyle that we expect to live versus the general lifestyle of the neighborhood .... i.e., Betton Hills is a very upscale, eclectic/professional close-in neighborhood that tends to be more adult-socially oriented, while the NE neighborhoods outside I10 are relatively new (generally less than 10 to 15 years old developments) with the best school systems and so they are more family/children oriented. They told us we would be okay living in any of these neighborhoods, but would probably be bored living in the family/children oriented neighborhoods, unless we had children (we don't).

We spent some time on realtor.com looking at houses in each of the neighborhoods that I mentioned above and came up with a list of about 30 houses to look at. Golden Eagle was the fartherest north that we considered, which is just north of Bannerman Road. Look for Thomasville Road on a map of Tallahassee, which runs from downtown out to the northeast and N Meridian Road, which runs from downtown to directly north of the city. You and your partner would probably want to look at areas to live east of N. Meridian or along Thomasville Road. We sort of set Bannerman Road and Bradfordville Road as the northern limit of where we would look.

Then we went down on two 4 day trips to Tallahassee in early December and last week (1st week of January) and spent 2 days on each trip with a real estate agent looking at homes in all the neighborhoods and 2 days driving around/eating/shopping in these areas to get a general "feel" for them. Coming from Atlanta where commutes to work everyday are typically an hour or more, Tallahassee is a welcomed change! When someone from Tallahassee says "suburbs" they are only talking about a 15 to 20 minute drive (at most) into downtown or really to any part of the city. It took us a while to realize that drive times are not an issue in Tallahassee, so you can really live in any part of the metro area and have short drives to get anywhere.

On our first trip we spent a lot of time looking at Betton Hills, Golden Eagle and Summerbrooke. Betton Hills has older homes, which come in a wide range of conditions from fully/nicely renovated to out-dated. Many of the narrow streets in Betton Hills are lined with moss draped trees that really give the neighborhood a unique character. Unfortunately though, we found the odd situation in Betton Hills that we have here in the in-town older neighborhoods of Atlanta: the owners who renovate their homes get fair top dollar for them on re-sale, but the owners of the out-dated houses right next door think they should get top dollar too for a non-renovated house like their neighbors (unrealistic expectations). Betton Hills has a somewhat "gay" feel to it and you'll find some eclectic house renovations/designs there that you will not find anywhere else in Tallahassee, but if you decide on living in this area, you'll need to work with an agent who really knows the neighborhood. We then went out to Golden Eagle, which is an upscale gated golf community with houses from the mid-$400's up into the millions and so is one of the more formal communities in Tallahassee. You will have privacy there, because unless you have kids who participate in the clubhouse activities and schools, you may not ever know or even meet your neighbors. Summerbrooke is ranked the #1 most popular neighborhood in Tallahassee and is a non-gated golf community with housing costs ranging from the low-$300's to mid-$400's. Summerville has paved sidewalks and there were many couples with strollers and kids taking walks on our first trip down in early December (it was warm and comfortable - another plus about Tallahassee in the Winter). Summerbrooke also has many lakes and properties that back onto the lakes, which really makes a great setting for a neighborhood (actually many areas of Tallahassee have small lakes like this).

On our 2nd trip down we spent more time looking at the Lakeshore Drive area just south of Lake Jackson. This area of town was developed in the late 60's into the 80's and has a real mix of housing that varies from the $100's along I10 on the southern side to the $millions for estate houses along the Lake shore. The homes along Lakeshore Dr. near Lake Jackson tend to have 1 to 2 acres of land and do not have the "subdivision" feel or layout. You can find homes built in the 80's along Lakeshore Drive that only need cosmetic updates for very good prices in comparison to the other neighborhoods ($111 avg price per sq ft compared to $135 to $150 per sq ft in Summerbrooke and Golden Eagle and higher in Betton Hills). The drive into town on N. Meridian from Summerbrooke or Lakeshore is incredible with moss draping from the trees over-hanging the road.

I apologize for the very long response, but I wanted to let you know about what we have discovered about areas to live in Tallahassee. At no time on either trip did we feel uncomfortable as a gay couple in any of the areas I've mentioned here, but I do have to admit that we spent almost all of our time in areas that would be considered "upscale" and professional.

Now about being bored by living in Tallahassee ...... that is a different subject all together. It really depends on the kind of things and activities you and your partner do now. My partner and I live in the Emory area of Atlanta close-in on the east side of downtown, but we really do not take advantage of the many "city things" that Atlanta offers (High Museum, Atlanta Symphony, Ballet, Opera, etc). We would rather go to an antique/flea market on the weekends, work in the yard, take our dogs for a walk, go to the gym, go to dinner, rent a beach condo for a long weekend, etc. ........ i.e, the kind of things you can certainly do living in Tallahassee. We are both finding that as we get older, while we are still working, we like to spend our free time on the simpler enjoyments of life. Clearly one big difference between CT and anywhere in FL, including Miami, is that you (in CT) are close to the large cities of the Northeast and all of them offer a far greater number and variety of cultural activities then any of the cities of the South, including Atlanta. Nothing in the South compares to the arts and culture available in Boston, Philadelphia and New York (I'm a Georgia/Atlanta native and can say this with absolute certainty). There is an older gay community in Sarasota and an active arts community there, but Sarasota offers nothing that compares with the museums and performing arts of the Northeastern cities. So if your primary "likes" are similar to the simpler ones on our favorite activities list, you would probably like living in Tallahassee. When the urge strikes for a good dose of the arts; however, you will have to take a long weekend and fly off elsewhere to go do the "city things". If you and your partner are socially active in gay community groups and do the weekend trips into Boston or NY, then moving to Tallahassee would be a mistake.

I hope some of my long winded ramble is of some help to you. Please drop me a note, if you two decide to move to Tallahassee. We'll be there starting sometime in mid-February.

[TD*]

Wow I love the response, and being a Tallahassee native it is mostly spot on for accuracy!

Especially since you captured the vibe in a few short trips!

[Strel]

Originally Posted by GaugeEnterprisesLLC

IT IS A COLLEGE TOWN = POPULATED BY STUDENTS.....COUNT THE # OF PEOPLE WALKING AROUND AND 20% ARE THERE FOR SCHOOL. i dont know what kind of point you are trying to make.

its not that difficult

That you are wrong, that's the point he is making.

Get more than a few miles from campus and the students aren't that much of a factor outside of traffic. Tallahassee is a college town, but it is not dominated by college students in the way a smaller place would be.