Other than building great outdoor projects, here's what we love most about this community.

1. The Birthplace of Speed — Before Daytona
Before Daytona International Speedway existed, before NASCAR was a word, automobile racing happened right here. Starting in 1902, speed pioneers including Ransom Olds and Alexander Winton raced their machines on the hard-packed sand from Ormond south through Daytona. The American Automobile Association brought official timing equipment in 1903 and gave this stretch of beach its permanent nickname: the Birthplace of Speed. Daytona gets the Speedway. Ormond gets the original.

2. The Casements — Rockefeller's Winter Home
John D. Rockefeller — once the wealthiest person in American history — chose Ormond Beach as his winter retreat. The Casements, his former residence along the Halifax River, now serves as the city's cultural center, offering tours, gardens, and a year-round calendar of community events. It's a piece of American Gilded Age history sitting quietly on Granada Boulevard, open to anyone who walks through the door.

3. Tomoka State Park
Three miles north of downtown sits Tomoka State Park — 2,000 acres of Old Florida wilderness along the Tomoka River, home to more than 160 bird species and accessible by kayak, canoe, hiking trail, and fishing dock. The ancient Timucuan village of Nocoroco once stood on this land. Today it's one of the most peaceful state parks on Florida's east coast, and Ormond By the Sea residents have it essentially as a backyard.

4. The Fairchild Oak
Tucked along Bulow Creek State Park near the Ormond Scenic Loop, the Fairchild Oak is one of the largest live oak trees in the American South — estimated at over 400 years old, with a canopy that stretches wide enough to feel like its own ecosystem. It's the kind of tree that makes you stop talking and just look. Ormond residents know exactly where it is. Most of the rest of Florida has never heard of it.

5. The No-Drive Beach
While Daytona Beach allows cars on its sand, Ormond By the Sea's beach is car-free — quieter, cleaner, and far less crowded. It's the detail that residents mention first when someone asks why they chose this stretch of coast over everywhere else. The waves are consistent enough that a serious surf culture has been here since the early 1980s — locals still know it as OBC. The beach is the reason people come. The quiet is the reason they stay.