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JACKSONVILLE--The Timucua, the Spanish, French Hugenots and the British have settled here in the upper right hand corner of Florida, and now a sizable encampment of mortgage bankers has arrived.
What draws an unusually large contingent of mortgage banking firms to this city of 700,000 are its late winter Sunday afternoons in the park, cool and crisp to a native Floridian, but mild and temperate to a Northerner.
They come to golf. The Tournament Players Championship golf course at Sawgrass Country Club near the beach in Ponte Vedra is a chip shot from downtown Jacksonville. Sawgrass is but one of about 60 public and private golf courses lining the First Coast, which stretches 30 miles south to Saint Augustine, the oldest city in America, founded by the Spanish in the 16th century.
They come for Cumberland Island, a pine-tree landscaped and undeveloped barrier island paradise, accessible only by ferry across the Georgia state line.
They come because Jacksonville is Florida, but with the Southern ambience of Georgia, a kind of relaxed city grace without the crowds of tropical Florida; more like Savannah than Fort Lauderdale.
"Jacksonville has a unique Southeast flavor," said Joe Pickett, chairman and chief executive officer of BancBoston Mortgage Corp.
Pickett's company has its headquarters here, along with the home offices of Barnett Mortgage Co., Merrill Lynch Credit Corp., Alliance Mortgage Co., and Atlantic Mortgage & Investment Corp.
The home of a leading computer center for servicing--the mortgage division of ALLTEL Information Services Inc., formerly known as Computer Power Inc.--commands a picturesque view of the...