Lists of Top Places to Retire and similar rankings are published for the benefit of their publishers, not their readers. They help build traffic to web sites and sales of magazines. They are either utterly subjective, the fanciful notions of whoever is putting together the list (in the most egregious cases, advertisers tend to wind up suspiciously near the tops of many rankings); or they are a pure popularity poll, a battle worthy of Jerry Springer ("How many of you think St. Pete is the father, how many of you think Naples is the father?"). Folks who have plunked down a solid six-figures for a home are not going to fess up to the fact that their choice was anything but the best. On the contrary, if you eventually buy a home in their towns, that will help stabilize their own home values.
        And so we come to the annual "Most Popular Places to Retire List for 2015" at TopRetirements.com, a web site I visit a few times a week for insights into what many people are saying about their searches and their choices for homes in retiree-friendly areas. I like Top Retirements Publisher John Brady's forthrightness about his list -– it is purely a popularity contest, he says. Take it, I say, with a lump of salt.
Asheville, NC is up there at the top of the list of most popular places to retire. Mountain Air, about 20 minutes north of the city, is up there in terms of elevation, more than 4,000 feet. An airstrip bisects the golf course at the top of the mountain.
        Still, the list itself, and others like it, are fodder for those of us who care about choices for retirement locations, and a good jumping off point for discussions comparing one town to another. (The Top Retirement poll does not include specific communities, but many of the comments are from residents who tout the communities where they have chosen to live.)
        A few things stick out for this correspondent in the latest popularity contest. First is the diversity of the Top 10 choices, with seven of them located on a coast and two of them in reclaimed desert. And, yet, the overall #1 choice of those who visit the Top Retirement site is Asheville, NC, a mountain-oriented town often described as a "Little San Francisco," for better or worse (better, in my opinion, because it is the only such town east of the Mississippi). Asheville, for all its popularity, is a bit sparse when it comes to diversity of well-regarded golf communities, at least in the immediate Asheville area, where you will find Biltmore Forest and The Cliffs at Walnut Cove on the high end, and Reems Creek and High Vista at a level just below (the latter two golf courses are open to the public, the first two strictly private). But if you are willing to venture farther afield from Asheville, say 30+ minutes, Mountain Air to the north, at an elevation nearing one mile, and Champion Hills and Kenmure in the Hendersonville area on the south, are outstanding choices for those looking for mild summers and tolerable winters. (This winter has been a bit of an anomaly.) Side note to pilots: Mountain Air maintains a mountaintop airstrip that bisects the Scott Pool golf course.

        If you were to draw a picture in your mind's eye of the ideal location for a golf community, you would likely conjure one that felt totally isolated from the rest of the world and yet, in reality, was an easy drive –- say 20 minutes -- to a functional, charming town with chain stores and boutiques, medical services and a choice group of restaurants. Oh, yes, and if you could get to an ocean beach within, say, 15 minutes, better yet.
        You get all that at the 28-year-old Dataw Island Club and golf community, located within 20 minutes of the quintessential Low Country town of Beaufort, SC, and less than 15 minutes to the sparkling sands of Hunting Island State Park. Not that you might consider leaving too often the 870-acre Dataw and its 36 holes of excellent golf, dozens of social and physical activities and a recently refurbished clubhouse that seems to have as many dining and meeting rooms as a major conference center.
For those who love Low Country tidal marshland, they will never tire of the views from the golf courses and many of the homes at Dataw Island.
        Alcoa Corporation developed Dataw Island in the mid 1980s; the aluminum manufacturer, like other large, land-owning corporations, believed a leisure residential development business could add to shareowner value. And, like International Paper, Weyerhauser and others, Alcoa eventually exited the business, although the company did not turn over Dataw to its residents until 2007, a handoff that community officials and residents agree went without a hitch. What the corporation left behind were two fine golf courses, one by Arthur Hills and the other by Tom Fazio, a beautifully and naturally landscaped community surrounded by wide expanses of marsh, and a master plan that put virtually every building lot within a good view of golf course, marsh, lagoon or, in many cases, a combination of all.
        Alcoa did something else that is unprecedented in my visits to more than 100 golf communities over the last decade: The company insisted that every home built in Dataw be wired for an emergency connection to the community's security guard gate that is manned 24x7. Not that there is a crime problem or anything like that at Dataw; there decidedly is not, but Alcoa had the presence of mind to understand that the community would appeal to a somewhat older demographic with the potential for health emergencies, possible falls and other accidents, including fire. Having the equivalent of a panic button in each house means that Dataw's security personnel –- at least one car is typically patrolling -- can be on the scene within minutes.
The vast majority of homes at Dataw Island look out to one of the two golf courses or the marsh and, in some cases, both.
        No one searching for a home in Dataw will panic over its housing prices. They are among the most reasonable we have encountered in any multi-golf course community, especially when you consider the views involved. You will have to work hard at finding many million-dollar homes at Dataw, and those will be huge and have million-dollar views over a wide expanse of marshland. But at the other end of the spectrum, a two-bedroom, two-bath villa, of which there are just a relative few beside the 9th hole, are priced as low as $158,000; two units at even lower prices are currently under contract. (Couples visiting to inspect Dataw are housed in the villas, a smart move for the community's marketing efforts since views across the fairway also take in the wide marsh beyond.) Single-family homes start as low as $170,500 for a three-bedroom, two-bath residence of 1,865 square feet and a view of the golf course. The least expensive homes at Dataw tend to be those in need of some cosmetic updating; now that the community is nearing its third decade, there are a number of those available. But because of the way Dataw developed, with no deadline requirement to build a home on a purchased lot, owners of some resale lots purchased in the last few years have built new homes next door to others 20 years and older. The effect is not as discordant as it may seem, and it appears that the older homes have been updated to literally keep up with the Joneses next door.