Clermont, Florida: What Has Changed and Why

How Clermont's Hills Built a Citrus Town

Founded in 1884 and incorporated as a town in 1891, Clermont was built on terrain that most of Florida lacks. The city, named for the French hometown of A.F. Wrotnowski of the Clermont Improvement Company, rose over the Lake Wales Ridge—the steepest ground in peninsular Florida. Those slopes drained well and caught the sun. For decades, they were ideal citrus country. Orange groves spread across the ridges and down toward the lakes, and the county’s economy ran on the harvest. By the mid-twentieth century, the groves were the defining sight: row after row of trees climbing hills that looked nothing like the flat Florida of postcards.

The Freezes That Ended Clermont's Citrus Era

Then the freezes came. Repeated hard freezes in the latter half of the twentieth century hammered the groves, and the industry dwindled fast. Suburban development moved in where the trees came out. The landscape transformed from orchard to residential. The same hills that had made the citrus possible were now being graded for roads and rooftops. By the time the freezes and sprawl had finished their work, most of the groves were gone—not replaced by another crop, but by houses, shopping plazas, and the quiet expansion of a commuter town. The economic engine had shifted irreversibly.

Why Clermont Became 'Choice of Champions'

The hills didn’t stop being useful; they just found a different market. In 2001, the National Training Center established itself in Clermont, and the town suddenly had a reason to market its topography. Cyclists and triathletes came for the same steep grades that had once drained citrus trees—the climbs that make Florida racing flat everywhere else. In 2014, the city formally adopted the slogan “Choice of Champions,” leaning into the athletic identity. The hills that had been an agricultural asset became a recreational one. The town began drawing athletes, coaches, and events built around endurance sports.

Clermont's Demographics Today

The census data paints a picture of a relatively affluent, educated, and stable community. Clermont’s population stands at 44,984, with a median age of 42.4 years. The median household income is $79,789. 35.7 percent of residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. The unemployment rate sits at 5.9 percent. Housing reflects both permanence and turnover: 18,718 total units, of which 1,800 are vacant and 558 are held for seasonal or recreational use. The median home value is $368,600, and the median gross rent is $1,774. The seasonal units hint at the town’s draw as a place to keep a second home—often, given the athletic infrastructure, a base for training or racing.

Clermont's New Community Events

The civic calendar has shifted to match the new identity. The biggest event is Pig on the Pond, a three-day festival held at Waterfront Park on Lake Minneola, run by Project Scholars, a non-profit. It draws more than 20,000 people and is the largest event in south Lake County. The park itself—with swimming, fishing piers, and a playground—anchors a modern lakefront life that has nothing to do with oranges. The festival, now in its 27th year as of 2026, is the kind of community gathering that replaced the harvest rhythms of the groves.

The Citrus Tower: A Landmark of Change

The Florida Citrus Tower, built in 1956, still stands over a landscape whose groves have largely gone—one of Florida’s earliest roadside landmarks outliving the industry it was built to celebrate. It was meant to be a vantage point for tourists to admire the endless orchards; now it offers a view of the suburban expansion that replaced them. The tower is a visual timeline: look one way, and you might see a remnant grove; look the other, and you see rooftops and roads. It has become a monument not to citrus, but to the change itself—a reminder that the industry it celebrated is now mostly memory.

What Has Changed in Clermont

The groves are gone, killed by freezes and built over by development. The hills remain, and they are the reason Clermont found a second act. The same terrain that once drained orange trees now hosts triathletes and cyclists, and the town has branded itself accordingly. The population is up. The housing stock is solid. The seasonal units suggest people want a piece of the place, even if only for part of the year. The Citrus Tower stands as an artifact of the old economy, while Waterfront Park and Pig on the Pond define the new community life. Clermont didn’t lose its identity when the citrus died; it just regraded it.