It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the City of Lake Helen website.

The website will be an ever evolving work in progress, designed to be useful for City residents, for individuals, agencies and corporations who wish, or have a need, to do business with the City, and for website visitors who wish to learn or know more about the town. Examples of information that will be posted on the website will include community activities and events, business directory, governmental contacts, online govenmental forms and publications, meeting minutes and agendas, proposed and adopted ordinances, City history, the City’s Future Land Use Plan which serves as our guide for managing growth and maintaining our small town charm, historic character and quality of life, opportunities for employment, opportunities to serve on City boards and committees, opportunities to volunteer to assist in City projects, community surveys, opportunities to bid on work associated with City projects, opportunities to make suggestions, comments and requests, etc.

For those who are visiting the website to learn about Lake Helen, let me say thank you for visiting online to see what our community is all about (we have been described as an area that represents the best of a Norman Rockwell painting; the “Mayberry” of the vintage Andy Griffith TV show and the “Lake Wobegone” ad to Garrison Keillor’s national public radio show “Prairie Home Companion” all rolled together). The written and visual information supplied here is an indication of our tremendous pride in our community, the “Gem of Florida” since 1888.

If, after visiting the website, you should desire to visit the City in person, the City Commission extends its warmest invitation to you to do so.

You will find that Lake Helen is a small town of approximately 2900 people situated along the Interstate-4 highway in central Florida adjacent to the neighboring larger cities of DeLand and Deltona and the smaller neighboring community of Cassadaga. We place a high value on “quality of life” here, with our guiding principles being: (1) to remain small, quaint, and uncongested with a unique “sense of place” that cannot be found elsewhere in central Florida; (2) to build upon and enhance our historic character; (3) to manage growth, rather than letting growth manage us; and (4) to protect and preserve the natural environment. As you may guess by now, we are fiercely protective of our life style and traditions in the middle of central Florida’s frenzied development. While we may be considered “quirky” by some, we have, nevertheless, established a reputation as a community that “gets it right”.

So, stop by and see our historic homes - shop downtown, have a “coffee to go”, check out our weekly auctions and antique & gift stores, stop by the health food store, savor the nostalgia of a Little League baseball game, walk the secluded nature trail from Lake Macy Park through to Cassadaga and Lake Colby, relax overnight at one of our hospitable bed & breakfast inns, read a book under a shade tree in one of our many parks, say a prayer in our historic churches and temples.

We hope you will appreciate what is offered.

Joan Duffy , Mayor of Lake Helen