What Happens When the Amish Get Rich

Every Monday, before 8 a.m., the parking lot of the New Holland horse auction in Lancaster County, Pa., begins to fill with gray, box-like buggies. Soon, Amish men—the bearded married ones and cleanshaven singles—are standing in clumps discussing land prices while children, dressed like mini-adults in polyester breech-front trousers and black aprons, scoot back and forth chasing each other. Adolescent boys preview the horses; mothers jiggle babies and catch up in murmured Pennsylvania Dutch. If you are Amish, you go to the auction even if you’re not in the market for a horse. Occasionally, “English,” or non-Amish, people show up. 

About five years ago an English businessman named Tim Moffitt began parking a cargo trailer at the auction. Moffitt, now 59, was known to many in Lancaster County as the former owner of Super Fruit, a produce business in nearby Chambersburg, which had employed Amish workers over the years. As he passed out free bags of fruit and jugs of orange juice from his trailer, Moffitt told visitors that he had sold Super Fruit for a considerable sum. Now he was looking to embark on his next great venture: a luxury mobile-home park outside Bushnell, Fla., about an hour north of Orlando.
Moffitt explained that this new RV park would attract retirees and snowbirds. It would have a community center, shuffleboard courts, and a Cracker Barrel-style restaurant. Small dwellings—casitas—could be built on trailer slabs for owners to use or rent. According to people who visited Moffitt’s trailer, he cited an appraisal claiming that the completed park would be worth $26 million and said it could eventually double in value. He also offered a monthly rate of return of around 9 percent. The project—known variously as the Southern Motor Coach Resort, the Southern Villas Motorcoach, and the Southern Hometown Village project—was quickly dubbed by the Amish, “the Florida Thing.”

Moffitt was one of those people who treated new acquaintances like old friends, say the Amish who met him at the auction. He would find out whom they knew in common, ask after someone’s health, give them an extra bag of oranges, and show deep gratitude to everyone who came by for a chat. He said he had spent five years researching other RV parks in Florida, so he could describe what others had done wrong. He also made sure that the Amish, who are devout Christians, understood that his own trust in God guided him.
Five Amish investors pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars each toward the Florida Thing. Those investors quickly began pitching relatives and neighbors on the deal, joining Moffitt in holding free chicken barbecues every Friday night at a small warehouse near Intercourse, Pa., that was christened “the Clubhouse.” As a nod to the future RV park, shuffleboard courts were painted onto the warehouse floor, and poster-size photos showed other RV parks beneath the Florida sun. An Amish assistant followed Moffitt, notebook in hand, writing down new commitments. “What really got it going was the names of some of the first investors,” says the son of one backer who, like most Amish interviewed for this story, insisted on anonymity because the Amish community looks darkly on sharing private information with the English press. “They were prosperous, and people felt that if those people got involved, the deal must be solid.”
The Florida Thing quickly became a frequent topic at wedding suppers, baseball games, and breakfast spots like the Best Western in Intercourse. To some, Moffitt’s promised rate of return looked too good to be true. Others enthusiastically signed up. One investor, who had a gazebo-manufacturing business, saw a potential pool of customers. Makers of fences, mailboxes, and storage sheds also sensed opportunity.

In 2009 and 2010, according to Florida records, Moffitt purchased 127 acres of land in Sumter County, near Bushnell, with a projected 385 RV lots to be developed for sale. The Florida Department of Transportation co-funded a new turn lane fronting the property in anticipation of the increased traffic. Within a few years, around 80 Amish families had put in $15 million to $20 million, according to investors and Pennsylvania filings. Investors received consistent interest payments, and an occasional newsletter in which Moffitt reported—with liberal praise and thanks to the Lord—on the park’s progress.


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