Issa Homes Lake Nona: 54 Homes Inside the Country Club

The custom builder with the longest run inside the country club gate — and the one Disney checked out by phoning 400 homeowners.

By David Myers, Broker Associate · NonaOrlandoProperties.com · Last updated August 2026

Issa Homes has built in two Lake Nona area neighborhoods: Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, where it has worked since 2003, and Laureate Park, where it built for a period and is no longer active. The company says it designed and built 54 homes inside the club between 2003 and 2024, ranging from about $1.2 million to nearly $4 million — the largest count of any custom builder there. Issa Homes was founded in 1972 by Francis Issa; Don Hempel joined as managing partner in the late 1980s. The company built more than 600 homes in Arvida's Weston community before relocating to Central Florida in 1998 at Disney's invitation. Issa was one of five builders assigned lots in the first Cromwell release at the club, starting a 4,265-square-foot home priced at $3.875 million in early 2024.

Fifty-four homes. That is what separates Issa Homes from the other custom builders on the Lake Nona builders list, and it is a number worth sitting with.

Inside Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, a 600-acre community that has been filling in since 1986, one builder has put up fifty-four houses over roughly two decades. Nobody else building custom there has that kind of run. When a buyer inside the club asks "who has done the most work here," this is the answer, and it is checkable rather than a marketing claim.

Which Lake Nona neighborhoods did Issa Homes build?

Two: Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, continuously since 2003, and Laureate Park, where it built for a period and has since moved on.

Who is Issa Homes?

A family luxury builder founded in 1972 that has spent most of its history being invited into communities rather than buying its way in.

Francis Issa founded the company in 1972, partnering with building industry figure Fred Costello in the 1970s. Don Hempel joined as managing partner in the late 1980s and set out to scale the operation; over roughly thirteen years the firm built more than 600 homes in Arvida's Weston community in South Florida.

In 1998 The Celebration Company, a subsidiary of Disney Development Company, invited Issa into its participating builder program. The company moved its headquarters from Boca Raton to Central Florida and went on to build several hundred homes in that Disney-developed town. In 2003 it began building in Lake Nona. In 2010 it broke ground on its first model home in Disney's Golden Oak.

The stated operating philosophy is a constraint on volume: build only as many homes as the principals can personally walk through. Whether or not you take that at face value, it is at least a claim a company can be held to — and the counts back it up. Fifty-four homes inside the club over twenty-one years is roughly two and a half homes a year in that community. That is a different business from a production builder and it should be evaluated differently.

What does the Disney vetting story actually tell you?

That the company was willing to hand over an unedited customer list — which is a harder test than any award.

During the vetting process for Disney's builder program, Issa handed over an unabridged list of 400 homeowners, and Disney called every one it could reach. The company's leadership has recounted this publicly, including the answer given when asked how they accounted for a 98 percent approval rating: not everyone can be happy.

Set aside the marketing sheen and there is something genuinely useful in that anecdote for a buyer. The test that mattered was not a portfolio or a brochure — it was an unfiltered list of past customers and permission to call all of them. That is a test you can run yourself.

So run it. Ask any custom builder you are considering, including this one, for a complete list of homeowners in the community where you intend to build, not a curated set of three. A builder that has been through Disney's version of that exercise should have no difficulty with yours. A builder who hesitates has answered the question.

What has Issa built inside the country club?

Fifty-four homes between 2003 and 2024, from about $1.2 million to nearly $4 million — and now the Cromwell expansion.

That price band is worth noticing. It spans more than three times from bottom to top, which tells you these are genuinely bespoke projects rather than a fixed product line. Early homes in the club sit at a different scale and price than what is being built today.

Cromwell is the club's first major expansion, a section along the south shore of Lake Nona platted by Tavistock. Five custom builders were each assigned three lots. Issa's first home there was a two-story, five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath house of about 4,265 square feet on a quarter-acre lot, priced at $3.875 million when construction began in early 2024 — described by the company as its 54th home in Lake Nona.

Two cautions on those figures. They describe a 2024 release, not today's market, so treat them as scale indicators and check the current new construction listings. And homes inside the club record under plat names such as Lake Nona Estates rather than under the club name, with the Cromwell section recording as Lake Nona Estates 10 — so a subdivision search on the club name will miss most of the sold history you need.

Why did Issa leave Laureate Park?

Because a custom builder and a design-code neighborhood are an awkward fit, and the club is where the work is.

Issa built in Laureate Park for a period and is no longer actively building there. The company has not made a public issue of it, so what follows is a reading rather than a stated reason.

Laureate Park is a Tavistock master plan with an architectural design code governing exterior color, style and modifications, on modest alley-loaded lots, alongside seven or eight production builders. That is a good neighborhood and a difficult environment for a builder whose product is bespoke design and whose volume philosophy is deliberately low. Inside the country club, lots are larger, the architecture is individual, and the buyer is commissioning a house rather than selecting a plan.

The practical consequence for a buyer: Issa homes in Laureate Park exist and come up for resale, and they are from a defined earlier window. If you find one, you are buying a custom builder's work inside a production neighborhood, which is often a better-finished house than its neighbors. Confirm the builder and year on the specific address rather than assuming, since several builders worked across many Laureate Park phases.

What should you check before buying or building with Issa?

The homeowner list, the contract structure, the plat name, and the club's own terms.

The homeowner list first, for the reasons above. With 54 homes inside one gate, this is a builder that can produce a substantial reference set in the exact community you are considering. Ask for it and use it. The questions that matter are about schedule discipline, change-order pricing and what happened after closing when something needed fixing.

Contract structure second. Fixed price or cost-plus, how allowances are set and what happens when you exceed them, the draw schedule, and what the warranty covers and for how long. On a custom build, the contract is the product.

Plat name third. Pull sold history under Lake Nona Estates and the relevant phase and parcel designations, not just the club name. At these prices, an incomplete comp set is an expensive mistake, and appraisal on a bespoke house in a small market is an event to plan for rather than a formality.

Then the club itself. Membership terms, categories and costs are set by the club, not by the builder or the seller, and they are a significant separate obligation. Confirm them directly with the club. And do the ordinary diligence that still applies: confirm the assessment on the specific parcel using our CDD fees explainer, and confirm school zoning for the exact address with our schools guide.

Issa Homes in Lake Nona: pros and cons

What works. Depth inside one community is the strongest thing here — 54 homes over two decades in a single club means the crews, the subcontractors and the approval process are all familiar territory, and it means an unusually large reference set you can actually call. The company has been vetted by organizations with reputational risk of their own and has kept those relationships for decades. The stated low-volume philosophy is consistent with the delivery counts rather than contradicted by them. And the signature open plans, connecting interior space to the outdoors, have aged well in a climate that rewards that.

What does not. This is a small private company, so the entity behind a warranty question in year ten is a modest business rather than a corporation. Custom building is the slowest, least predictable and most expensive route to a house, and no builder's track record removes that. Issa is no longer building in Laureate Park, so if that neighborhood is where you want to be, this builder is a resale-only proposition there. And at the club, the club is a substantial separate cost that has nothing to do with the builder and everything to do with what the address costs to own.

What the neighbors know

Inside the club, Issa is a familiar name in a way that outside builders are not — two decades and fifty-plus houses means residents have watched the same crews work on street after street, and that familiarity is its own kind of reference. People there tend to know which houses are Issa's without checking.

The other thing residents mention is the open plans. Issa's signature is connecting interior living space to the outdoors, and in a community built around lakes, oaks and a Fazio golf course, that orientation is the whole point of being there. The houses are designed to look out, which is what people who chose this address wanted in the first place.

Official sources

• Issa Homes in Lake Nona Golf & Country Club
• Lake Nona Golf & Country Club: custom builders
• About Issa Homes: company history

The inclusion of businesses, individuals, groups, associations, and links on this site does not imply endorsement by the site owner.

Considering building inside Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, or looking at an Issa resale? I can pull the full sold history under every plat name the club records under, and help you work through a builder's reference list properly. Call/Text David Myers at 407.801.3286 or use the contact form.

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