Picture this real estate nightmare: 58 acres of lakes, clubhouse, and RV sites that can only legally operate as a nudist colony, now listed for $2.5 million in Pasco County’s red-hot housing market. The Florida Naturist Park carries six decades of scandal, from its founder’s criminal past to racist policies and escaped pythons, making it possibly America’s most complicated property sale and one of the most mysterious places in real estate.
The Naked Truth About Thomas Gulvin’s Empire
A postal worker with a rap sheet built Florida’s most infamous naturist community.
Thomas Ward Gulvin arrived in Hudson, Florida, in 1959 with baggage that would make any modern HOA nervous. The Rochester postal worker already faced charges for bigamy, indecent exposure, and morals violations when he spotted a newspaper ad for swampy Pasco County land. His vision? A religious nudist sanctuary where clothing was sin and nature worship required birthday suits.
By the 1960s, Gulvin’s empire peaked at 2,000 members paying $25 singles fees to access mandatory nudity zones. The property featured a double-decker bus serving as his church, bodybuilder Dick Falcon’s Sunshine Beach Club, and even hosted the filming of “Naked Complex” in 1963.
But paradise came with a price beyond membership dues.
Key scandals that defined the park:
- Six Gulvin children were removed to foster care in 1965 for unfit living conditions
- Racist deed restrictions banning Black buyers until the late 1980s
- 1965 church fire, 1981 drowning, and 1984 escape of a 9.5-foot python named “Sonny.”
- Failed lawsuits against clothed residents and rejected religious tax exemption claims
Why Nobody Wants to Buy a Nudist Colony
Strict zoning laws and holdout residents make this Florida’s toughest real estate flip.
“We don’t have the expertise to run a nudist colony,” admits Art Gulvin, 68, the founder’s non-nudist son now handling the sale through broker Dayton Johnson. The family’s honesty about their limitations reflects a deeper problem: Pasco County zoning restricts the property solely to naturist use, creating a Catch-22 for potential buyers in a county where home prices have surged 52%.
The last serious purchase attempt crashed spectacularly in 2003 when Bill Martin paid $1.5 million, planning a “Christian nudist” resort. Resident revolts, lawsuits, and Martin’s eventual bankruptcy by 2007 scared off future investors.
Current interest from an unnamed air conditioning company owner suggests possible upscale resort plans, but “it would take somebody who has a pretty thick wallet,” Art Gulvin warns.
While adjacent developments like Palm Wind offer $293,000 starter homes to clothed families, the naturist park remains frozen in amber—a relic of 1960s counterculture surrounded by suburban sprawl, waiting for someone brave enough to navigate both its zoning restrictions and its ghosts, like other abandoned properties that tell stories of forgotten dreams.
