Our story
The History of Starkey Ranch
From a working Florida cattle ranch to a master-planned community — the land, and the family whose ties to it spanned generations.
Long before Starkey Ranch became a master-planned community, this land was a working Florida cattle ranch, built by a family whose ties to it spanned generations.
From cattle ranch to community
Jay B. Starkey Sr. left a career with the U.S. Postal Service in 1922 to become a rancher, starting with 10 acres in Pinellas County. In 1937, he moved his cattle operation to Pasco County, where the ranch eventually grew to more than 16,000 acres of forest, wetlands, and open pasture — including the headwaters of the Anclote and Pithlachascotee rivers. Cattle and timber were the family’s business for decades, and the land stayed largely undeveloped.
Conservation under the Starkeys
In 1975, Starkey donated several hundred acres to the Southwest Florida Water Management District — the beginning of what became the Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Preserve. His son, Jay B. Starkey Jr., continued that work in the decades that followed.
Today the Preserve covers roughly 18,000 acres across three tracts: Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park, the Serenova Tract, and the Anclote River Ranch Tract — protecting wetlands, pine flatwoods, and cypress domes, and offering hiking, biking, horseback riding, and camping.
Building the community
By the early 2000s, the remaining privately held portion of the ranch was still cattle land. In 2013, Wheelock Communities acquired the last 2,500 acres and began developing what Pasco County had approved as a master-planned community: homes, retail, schools, and parks.
The development kept the ranch’s footprint in view rather than erasing it. Starkey Ranch includes more than 800 acres of parks and open space and over 20 miles of trails connecting neighborhoods to each other and to the adjacent Wilderness Preserve. Streets, neighborhoods, and parks carry names tied to the ranch’s original owners, partners, and friends. A plaque outside the old Starkey family ranch house, listing the names of the men who camped and rode the land with him, was the source for many of them.
Construction began in earnest in the mid-2010s. Starkey Ranch District Park — with its athletic fields, trails, and playgrounds — became the community’s central gathering space.
Starkey Ranch continues to grow, but the land’s working history — shaped by a family, a cattle ranch, and a long tradition of conservation — remains woven into the way the community looks and functions today.
Visit the Preserve
The Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Preserve borders the community and is open for hiking, biking, and horseback riding. Trail maps and hours are on the Southwest Florida Water Management District site.