Hendry County, Florida: A Local Guide for Home Buyers and Homeowners

LaBelle

LaBelle goes by the City Under the Oaks and The Belle of the Caloosahatchee, and its downtown streets are lined with oaks. A 1928 fire destroyed many original buildings, but the town’s historic district is on the National Register of Historic Places, and a self-guided walking tour covers the sites.

The Old Hendry County Courthouse, finished in 1927, joined the National Register in 1990. The LaBelle Heritage Museum and the Captain Hendry House and Park tell the local cattle and river history.

Clewiston

Clewiston holds U.S. Sugar’s headquarters at 111 Ponce de Leon Ave. along with its cane sugar mill and refinery, and the city’s official tagline is “Proudly Serving America’s Sweetest Town.”

The Historic Clewiston Inn, built in 1938 and on the National Register of Historic Places, has a 360-degree Everglades mural in its Everglades Lounge.

Port LaBelle

Port LaBelle lies east of downtown LaBelle, with Port LaBelle Marina on the Okeechobee Waterway about five miles from downtown. Homes there get water and sewer from the county-run Port LaBelle Utility System.

Fort Denaud

Fort Denaud is a riverside community on the site of the 1838 fort of the same name, one of the county’s first permanent settlements. Scenes from the 1995 film Just Cause were shot here.

Big Cypress Reservation

The Big Cypress Reservation in southeastern Hendry, about 45 minutes from Clewiston, is where you’ll find the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum and its swamp boardwalk, plus Billie Swamp Safari’s airboat and swamp buggy tours.

Airglades and Riddle Field

Airglades Airport, east of Clewiston, is a general aviation field used by small planes, skydivers and flight trainees. It sits on the site of World War II’s Riddle Field, where the No. 5 British Flying Training School trained more than 1,800 RAF pilots.

Hendry County SHIP homebuyer assistance

Hendry County’s SHIP program helps income-verified very-low, low and moderate-income buyers with down payment and closing costs. The county runs it under a Local Housing Assistance Plan it files with Florida Housing, and the housing office keeps desks in LaBelle at 133 N. Bridge St. and in Clewiston at 1100 Olympia St. The housing line is 863-675-5297.

Hendry takes SHIP applications only during advertised periods, and the award amounts come from a plan the county revises. Before you write an offer in LaBelle or Clewiston, we check with the Bridge Street housing office on what SHIP pays and whether an application period is open or coming up. Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll find out.

Hendry County SHIP page

Hendry County SHIP Rehabilitation

The county’s SHIP rehab program repairs health, safety and code problems for income-qualified owners of single-family homes who are current on their taxes and mortgage. The housing department also points rural owners to USDA Rural Development home repair loans.

Repairs depend on what’s left in the year’s SHIP budget. If you own in Hendry and the roof, septic or wiring needs work, call 888-601-8344 and we’ll find out whether rehab money is there, and whether a refinance could cover the job if it isn’t.

Hendry SHIP home repairs

Florida Hometown Heroes (statewide)

Hometown Heroes is for buyers working full time for a Florida-based employer in health care, K-12 schools, first response, public safety, the courts or licensed child care, so a nurse, a teacher at a Hendry school or a deputy may qualify. Active-duty military qualify regardless of employer, and veterans, Reserve and National Guard members qualify with a full-time job at any Florida-based employer, U.S. Sugar in Clewiston included.

It pairs a 30-year fixed first mortgage, FHA, VA, USDA or Conventional, with a 0% second for down payment and closing costs. That second has no monthly payment, and it’s repaid when you sell, refinance or pay off the home, or stop living in it; it’s never forgiven. You’ll complete a homebuyer education course, online is fine, and apply through a participating lender or broker.

A buyer gets Florida Housing assistance once in a lifetime, which is a reason to use it on the right Hendry house with the right lender. Income and purchase limits differ by county and the money is reserved loan by loan, so call 888-601-8344 before you tour and we’ll check Hometown Heroes against your LaBelle or Clewiston address.

Official program page

FL Assist and HFA Preferred (statewide)

FL Assist is a 0% deferred second with no monthly payment, repaid when you sell, refinance, transfer or move out, behind a Florida Housing first mortgage: FHA, VA, USDA, or Conventional HFA Preferred and HFA Advantage. HFA Advantage PLUS adds a second on a Freddie Mac Conventional first that’s forgiven over 5 years while you keep living there. The Florida HLP second is the one with a small fixed monthly payment over 30 years.

A Hendry buyer counts as first-time with Florida Housing after 3 years without owning a primary residence, and veterans holding a DD-214 can be exempt from that rule. Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll tell you which of these seconds pairs best with SHIP on a Hendry purchase.

Official program page

Schools

The Hendry County School District, at 300 W Cowboy Way in LaBelle, runs the public schools; for enrollment and school information, start at hendry-schools.org.

Getting around

State Road 80 is the main east-west route. It was completed in 1926 to link Fort Myers and Palm Beach, and it puts LaBelle about 28 miles east of Fort Myers and roughly 100 miles from West Palm Beach. SR 29 crosses the Caloosahatchee at LaBelle by Barron Park, and CR 832 heads south toward the Okaloacoochee Slough.

Boaters can tie up at the LaBelle city dock or Port LaBelle Marina on the Okeechobee Waterway, which links the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Airglades Airport near Clewiston is a general aviation field.

Swamp Cabbage Festival

LaBelle’s Swamp Cabbage Festival has filled Barron Park on the last full weekend of February since the 1960s, with a parade, a rodeo, armadillo races and fried swamp cabbage (sabal palm heart) fritters.

Clewiston Sugar Festival

Clewiston throws its Sugar Festival each spring, with music, vendors and classic cars, a fitting party for a city whose official tagline is “Proudly Serving America’s Sweetest Town.”

Okaloacoochee Slough

The Okaloacoochee Slough WMA and State Forest covers about 32,039 acres, roughly 21 minutes south of LaBelle on CR 832. The land was once logged, ranched and drilled for oil, and it’s now home to panthers, black bears, sandhill cranes and wood storks.

Dinner Island Ranch and Spirit-of-the-Wild

Dinner Island Ranch WMA covers about 34 square miles, 29 miles southwest of Clewiston, and is open year-round for hiking, biking and horseback riding, with two camping areas and unpaved scenic drives. Spirit-of-the-Wild WMA, 7,487 acres about 12 miles north of LaBelle, is being restored for the Florida panther and Florida black bear.

Birding at STA-5

Stormwater Treatment Area 5, a man-made wetland one mile east of Clewiston built to protect the Everglades, has recorded more than 200 bird species along 18 miles of trails, best seen on Hendry-Glades Audubon guided tours. The Big “O” Birding Festival each spring showcases about 250 species.

On the river in LaBelle

LaBelle Nature Park sits on a bluff above the Caloosahatchee with shaded hammock trails, and anglers fish for bass, crappie and panfish from the Barron Park pier. The Hendry County Fair comes in early February with a livestock show and midway, the LaBelle Rodeo Arena is in town, and Blueberry Bunch Farm offers u-pick blueberries.

Walking the dike and the Big Cypress

The Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, part of the Florida National Scenic Trail, runs along the top of the Herbert Hoover Dike: Moore Haven to Clewiston is 11.9 miles, and Clewiston to South Bay is nine. Down south, an 11.1-mile Florida Trail segment crosses the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation, with advance arrangements made through the Florida Trail Association.

LaBelle in fiction

Carl Hiaasen’s novel Skinny Dip puts an agribusiness executive’s offices in LaBelle.

Buying a home

Most of our Hendry County buyers go FHA, with 3.5% down and flexible credit guidelines, and it pairs with the Hendry SHIP and Florida Housing programs above. For eligible veterans, VA means no down payment, and we also close Conventional, Hometown Heroes and FHA 100% financing loans.

AAA Capital Funding has been a licensed Florida mortgage broker since 1997 and lends in all 67 Florida counties statewide, not only out here on the Caloosahatchee. We shop your loan with multiple wholesale lenders, and you’ll know what you qualify for before you start touring homes in LaBelle, Port LaBelle or Clewiston.

Refinancing the home you have

Hendry owners refinance to lower the monthly payment, take cash out for a new roof or a septic upgrade, pay off higher-interest debt, or buy out someone else’s share of the home. The equity in a LaBelle or Clewiston house can cover any of those.

Call 888-601-8344 and we’ll put your current payment beside the new one, with the cash you’d take out and the closing costs, so the numbers make the decision.