The lakes near Atlanta are a very welcome cooling-off feature during Georgia’s humid summers. Your home may be air-conditioned and your retirement community may have a beautiful pool, but when the humidity rises there’s nothing to beat the cooling breezes that those Atlanta lakes attract.
Two of the largest lakes near Atlanta are Lake Lanier and Lake Oconee, and both have nearby 55+ communities. Lake Lanier is about an hour’s drive northeast of Downtown Atlanta in Northern Georgia, while Lake Oconee is a 75-minute drive to the southeast.
Lake Lanier and Lake Oconee are actually man-made reservoirs with many outdoor activities on offer, including golf resorts, watersports, fishing, hiking, and biking opportunities. Both of them are holiday destinations in their own right, so a home in a 55+ community close to these Atlanta lakes is like being on permanent vacation.
Cresswind at Lake Lanier – Gainesville, GA
Mid $300s – High $700s
Cresswind at Lake Lanier is a gated community for the 55+ active adult with 934 single-family homes. It stands right on Lake Lanier, and it’s a 10-minute drive from Downtown Gainesville. There are also woodland and lakeside parks nearby.
Amenities include a 36,000-square-foot clubhouse, indoor and outdoor pools, a bath house and sauna, a fitness center, art studios, a ballroom, a library, six tennis courts, other courts for pickleball and bocce, an outdoor amphitheater, fishing lakes, and a private dock and 70-slip marina on Lake Lanier.
Many of the lifestyle activities naturally center on the water, with a fishing club, a kayak group, and water aerobics. Other groups, classes and activities include card and board games, a cooking club, a golf group, a gardening club, a piano club, and a travel club.
Home models at Cresswind come in eight different series, starting at 1,275 square feet. These models have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a two-car garage. The largest homes are 2,964 square feet, and these offer four bedrooms, a den, three-and-a-half bathrooms, and a two-car garage.
Del Webb at Lake Oconee – Greensboro, GA
Low $300s – Low $600s
Del Webb at Lake Oconee is one of the few Del Webb communities that’s located right on a navigable lake. It’s a gated community for the 55+ active adult, with 866 attached and single-family homes. It’s a 15-minute drive from Downtown Greensboro, a small town of about 3,600 people, but large enough to provide shopping, banking, and dining options for residents. There’s also a hospital less than five minutes from the Del Webb community.
Amenities include a clubhouse, a fitness center, a ballroom, an arts and crafts studio, and an aerobics and dance studio. Outdoors, there’s a pool, six pickleball courts, four clay tennis courts, four bocce courts, a croquet field, gardening plots, a playground for visiting grandkids, eight miles of walking trails, a lakeside pavilion with a grill, a boat and kayak launch, and a 38-slip marina.
Residents at this Georgia lakeside community enjoy a very active lifestyle, with dozens of clubs, groups, classes, and activities on offer. These range from Bible study to Wall Street investors, with numerous card and board game clubs, groups for all the arts and crafts you could imagine, sports clubs, hunting, jet-skiing, dancing, music, fishing, gardening, and even a Harley owners group.
The smallest models offer 1,109 square feet, one or two bedrooms, one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half bathrooms, and a two-car garage. The largest models offer 2,597 square feet, three bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, and a two-car garage. Other models are available which are smaller in size but have up to four bedrooms and a den.
The Springs – Flowery Branch, GA
Mid $400s – High $500s
The Springs is another community with access to one of the lakes near Atlanta, GA. It lies on the shores of Lake Lanier in Flowery Springs, a city of just under 10,000 people (with the much larger city of Gainesville only a 15-minute drive away). The Springs is a small community of 275 single-family homes with no age restrictions.
Amenities include a 24-hour fitness center, a 27-seat movie theater, a catering kitchen, a café, and a library. Outside, there are two pools (including an infinity pool), eight lighted tennis courts, a basketball court, a lakeside pavilion with an outdoor grill, a community fire pit, three children’s playgrounds, a community dock, and rentals for canoes, kayaks, and rowboats.
Although the Springs is the smallest of these three communities near Atlanta lakes, there’s no lack of lifestyle options by way of groups, activities, clubs, and classes organized by and for its residents. These range from aqua aerobics to yoga, by way of a book club, cooking classes, holiday parties, hiking trips, jazz nights, tennis groups, and trivia nights.
The models here are all of a good size, with the smallest being 1,716 square feet. These have three or four bedrooms, two or three bathrooms, and a two-car garage. The largest homes are 2,782 square feet with three bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, and a two-car garage.
