Steeple Chase (Lake Wales) Homes for Sale

Steeple Chase in Lake Wales is an approved-but-stalled residential plan, not a selling community. The honest frame is this: the City of Lake Wales approved the Planned Unit Development in December 2023, but as of mid-2026 no builder is committed, no prices exist, and no construction timeline has been announced.

First, the disambiguation: this is the Steeple Chase project off Belleview Drive in Lake Wales, Polk County. It is not the established Steeple Chase neighborhood in Lake Mary and not Steeplechase in Kissimmee.

The approved December 2023 plan calls for 318 units on roughly 98 acres north of Belleview Drive and east of Scenic Highway South: 250 single-family detached homes plus 68 townhomes with rear-alley access, per GrowthSpotter. Orlando-based Dave Schmitt Engineering is the civil engineer, and Celebration-based CBD Real Estate Investment is the developer.

Here is the part most pages will not tell you. That alley-loaded design follows the city's Lake Wales Envisioned traditional-neighborhood standards, and since approval, CBD has been unable to find a homebuilder willing to build it. The developer has said the rear-alley design adds roughly $40,000 to the cost of each home (GrowthSpotter, December 2023).

So CBD proposed a 'Plan B': front driveways instead of alleys, with 322 total lots — 110 single-family detached and 56 duplex lots in Phase 1, and 156 single-family detached in Phase 2, alongside designated recreation and open space. The Lake Wales Planning and Zoning board voted 3-2 to deny those modifications in January 2026, despite a city staff recommendation, and upheld the denial in February 2026 (GrowthSpotter, February 2, 2026). The developer has said his next step is the city commission.

The result: the 2023 entitlement stands on paper, the version builders would apparently build was denied, and nothing is moving. There are no floor plans, no models, no prices, and no dates.

Because nothing is built, the lifestyle is a plan on paper, but the plan and the fight over it tell you what this corner of Lake Wales is becoming.

The site sits south of Highway 60 between Scenic Highway South and 11th Street, about five minutes from downtown Lake Wales, in what is today mostly former grove land. Directly south across Belleview Drive is the Groves at Orchard Hills tract, approved for roughly 907 units and a commercial building on about 223 acres, per GrowthSpotter.

Zoom out and the corridor is the story: Lake Wales commissioners had approved more than 15,660 new homes citywide as of March 2024, per LakeWalesNews.net, including the 3,000-plus-home ViaTerra master plan and the actively selling Leoma's Landing. The city's Lake Wales Envisioned plan is trying to shape all of that growth toward walkable, traditional-neighborhood design, alleys and mixed housing types included, and Steeple Chase is where that policy is colliding with builder economics in public view.

Schools for the greater Lake Wales area are operated by the Lake Wales Charter Schools system under a charter with the Polk County School Board, including Edward W. Bok Academy for middle grades and Lake Wales High School. Confirm elementary assignment and enrollment procedures directly with Lake Wales Charter Schools and Polk County Public Schools, since this is a charter system rather than a conventional attendance-zone setup.

There is nothing to commit to yet, and that is the point. No homebuilder is under contract to build Steeple Chase, no pricing exists, and no HOA or CDD has been formed or confirmed. Anyone quoting you a price, a fee, or a move-in date for this community is guessing.

Timeline risk here is worse than on a typical entitlement-stage project, because the project is not just early, it is stalled. The approved product has no willing builder, and the product builders would apparently build was denied by the planning board twice, in July 2025 and again in January and February 2026. Resolution runs through the city commission or a redesign, and either can take time or fail.

If you are relocating to Lake Wales on a real timeline, treat Steeple Chase as a corridor to watch, not a place to wait for. Confirm anything you hear directly with CBD Real Estate Investment and the City of Lake Wales Development Services, and cross-shop the communities in the area that are actually selling today.

The fairest comparison is not to a finished neighborhood but to where Steeple Chase sits in the Lake Wales growth wave. Against Leoma's Landing, the D.R. Horton and Lennar community off Chalet Suzanne Road that is selling now, Steeple Chase is the opposite end of the pipeline: an approved plan with no builder, no prices, and an unresolved design fight, versus homes you can contract on today. Against the Groves at Orchard Hills tract directly to its south, roughly 907 approved units, Steeple Chase is the smaller and currently more contested piece of the same Belleview Drive corridor. And against its name twins, Steeple Chase in Lake Mary and Steeplechase in Kissimmee, there is no comparison to make at all: those are different, established communities in different counties. The honest summary: Steeple Chase Lake Wales is a watch-list item on a genuinely growing corridor, and the comparison set is what you can actually buy in Lake Wales while it sorts itself out.

Steeple Chase fits the buyer who is tracking the Lake Wales corridor early: someone relocating on a flexible timeline who wants to know about the Belleview Drive pipeline before it becomes listings, values the Lake Wales Envisioned walkable-design intent if it survives, and is comfortable that this project may change form or stall further. It does not fit anyone who needs to move on a schedule, since nothing is for sale and the project has no timeline; anyone who needs certainty on price, HOA, or product type, since none of that exists; or anyone who would treat an approved site plan as a promise. Whatever you hear about this project, confirm it in writing with the developer and the City of Lake Wales before you act on it.