Wastin’ away in retirement paradise 🍹 Adam Bedoian, Margaritaville

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Episode at a Glance

GUEST: Adam Bedoian

COMMUNITY: Latitude Margaritaville

HOST: Bailey Richardson

“I tell all my staff you have your hearts. your minds and your ears open to new ideas. It doesn't have to come from you to be a great idea.” - Adam Bedoian

Show Notes

Turns out Margaritaville isn’t just a state of mind, it’s a real place. Three retirement communities to be exact. Latitude Margaritaville in Florida’s Daytona Beach and WaterSound, and Hilton Head, South Carolina is where seniors can live out their biggest Buffett-inspired retirement dreams.

When moving into a retirement community, people care greatly about what a community will be like. Margaritaville communicates a clear identity of fun, food, music and escapism. And it’s resonated. People camped out overnight to be the first to buy in the Margaritaville development in Daytona Beach.

We talked with Adam Bedoian who’s job is to bring that lifestyle Margaritaville promises to life. Each week they host 10 hours of live music, pickleball games, and a number of programs at their restaurants, fitness centers, amphitheater shell, and pool. Residents have stepped up officially and unofficially to support the community as resident advisors, hostess, and even with technical pieces behind the scenes like accounting.

We were delighted to see how clear Adam and his team took a “build with” approach to establishing the community at Margaritaville and hope you enjoy the story.

Just like when building a fire, there’s an order of operations you can follow to cultivate communities that burn bright.

In our book, “Get Together: How to build community with your people,” we take you through three stages of building a community: sparking the flame, stoking the fire, and passing the torch.

Here’s Adam on the first step, sparking the flame.

Pinpoint your people.

Latitude Margaritaville is for folks who are 55+. Most people are newly retired or plan to do so very soon.

Adam compares it to the likes of freshman year of college, “you just got out of your parents' house, you don't have rules anymore. You don't have any curfew and you can do whatever you want to.” These folks are just getting out of the working world and are ready to sink into a beach chair with a drink in hand.

Before the team behind Latitude Margaritaville started making any footprints, the team reached out to Jimmy Buffet’s loyal fans (“Parrot Heads”) to see if the idea resonated and they responded, “why didn’t we think of this sooner?” Margaritaville resonated as a place these superfans, and many others of their generation, could live the vacation lifestyle they craved.

**Defining why residents get together**

The Margaritaville lifestyle comes down to four pillars: fun, food, music and escapism. When there are tiffs between neighbors, Adam reminds residents, “you didn't move here because of your political beliefs. You didn't move here because of what you thought religiously. You moved here because you wanted to enjoy that state of mind. When you open your door and become part of the community, let that be your guiding light.” With this in mind, everything else will fall into place.

Corn hole tournament at Latitude Margaritaville

Building with residents

Adam asks regularly, “What can we do to build a community that will make people truly happy to live here?” In his two years at Margaritaville, the answers have changed. Some programs work for a few months and then they need to be refreshed.

To know when to adjust or change their programming, Adam listens to residents for new ideas instead of trying to conjure them up out of thin air. “I tell all my staff you have your hearts. your minds and your ears open to new ideas. It doesn't have to come from you to be a great idea.” From there they can refine and make something amazing.

Because of this desire to supercharge what the community wants, a number of resident-driven programs have popped up--card, book, and popper clubs plus a band that might even get more attention from the community than Buffett himself.

Residents have stepped up as unofficial resident advisors, answering new neighbor’s questions about the Home Owners Association, and accountants and hostess, official paid members of the team.