New out building / shop in the works !
C'mon down!! Inverness is within 15 miles of where I moved to last Nov. I did not know it when I moved here but this area has a rabid fan base of car nuts! People around here LOVE their old cars and hotrods and many, many of them have multiple cars. You can go to a cruise or car show just about every day of the week within 30 miles if you wanted to. Example: the city of Inverness closes down their downtown every 3rd Friday of the month, clears out whomever is parked there, and has an open show for older cars from 3:00 through the rest of the day. Pretty cool of them.
You know Florida weather and this area is not the tropics you were used to. We've spent our first winter here and are told it was one of the coldest and wettest the natives can recall. But that just meant we had to wear a sweatshirt on the coldest days and never stopped any outdoor activities! This area historically doesn't really get hit with the brunt of hurricanes - but I don't know why it couldn't. I'm 8 miles from the gulf but sit at almost 90 feet elevation so I sure won't have any hurricane flooding from one if it does come through! The summers here are, well, Florida summers. Major heat but we love that and have spent many weeks here in years past.
It's not really a tourist area so minimal snowbird traffic season. The natives here would tell you people like my wife and me are part of the problem of growth here! We live in a big subdivision with minimum lot sizes of 1 acre and minimal rules and dues less than $100 per YEAR! Large detached garages are permitted which was the draw for us. Inverness itself has grown quite a bit so "rush hour" traffic is a lot more than it used to be but it is nothing like being in a big city or s/w Florida since that's where you were before.
Don't know if you're a racer but the Gainesville Raceway track is about 65 miles away.
All that said, I can't imagine you moving again? You just left this state and showed some beautiful scenery right outside your door there in NC! But this new Floridian says c'mon back!! lol. PM me if I can help!