Editing Beverly Hills, Florida (section)

==History==
Sam Kellner, a Jewish businessman from New York, made a fortune in the tire business during the 1930s and 1940s, after which he went into construction and real estate development. Around 1960 he purchased 3,500 acres of land in interior Citrus County. Within a few years, Kellner began to develop the former cattle land, selling simple, single-story homes to retirees from the urban North, especially New York and Detroit. Kellner named his new venture Beverly Hills.

Beverly Hills was among the first retirement-oriented planned communities in Central Florida. Like other such developments in [[South Florida]] and the [[Tampa Bay area|Tampa-St. Petersburg]] area, a private company—Kellner’s Rolling Oaks Corporation—owned most of the non-residential property, including a nearby lumberyard and concrete plant. Purchasing land in a rural, inland area allowed Kellner to market the new community to working class retirees at affordable prices. Beverly Hills proved an early success, growing from 20 homes in the spring of 1962 to around 400 by the end of 1965. In 1972, the development’s population reached 4,500 residents living in 2,200 homes.<ref>{{Cite web|title=ISJL - Florida Citrus County Encyclopedia|url=https://www.isjl.org/florida-citrus-county-encyclopedia.html|access-date=2022-01-17|website=Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life|language=en}}</ref>

In 1980, Beverly Hills Development Corp. purchased the subdivision from original developer Sam Kellner in 1980 and nine years later it was sold to Morrison Homes, the Atlanta-based home builder which ceased selling homes in the subdivision in 1999.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Morrison retires from building Beverly Hills|url=https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1999/03/02/morrison-retires-from-building-beverly-hills/|access-date=2022-01-17|website=Tampa Bay Times|language=en}}</ref>