Wekiwa Home

06Inside Wekiwa Home, room by room

From the street, Wekiwa Home is an older single-story house on a quiet block of similar homes. The front yard is small, with shrubs instead of a lawn, and the covered entry is where you step out of the sun to unlock the door. The house is plain outside and thorough inside, and we would rather you know that before you book than notice it at check-in.

Inside, the whole living space opens under a vaulted ceiling: a sectional and an armchair face a wall-mounted TV, and a dining table for four sits just off the living room, close enough that a plate goes straight from the stove to the table without a hallway in between.

The kitchen sits at the back of that same room, white cabinets around a stainless range, microwave, dishwasher and a side-by-side refrigerator. The cabinets come stocked with glasses, plates and cookware, so unpacking groceries covers most of the first-night setup. It runs one wall of counter instead of an island or a second run, the honest trade for a house this size, and it does the job well for one or two people cooking a real dinner most nights.

Down a short hall, the two bedrooms split the sleeping space two different ways. The first has a king bed and its own wall-mounted TV, built for a couple or a solo guest. The second has two full beds, the room that makes the house work for two colleagues on the same work assignment, or a parent and an older child who prefer separate beds. A tub bath and a separate walk-in tile shower, finished in marble-look tile, serve the two rooms between them, so two people keeping different schedules are not waiting on the same bathroom before the same shift.

Tile covers the whole house, living room through both bedrooms, a plain and practical flooring choice for a rental. A full-size washer and dryer sit off the kitchen, and ceiling fans run in the living room and both bedrooms. That is the entire footprint: there is no second living area, no game room, and no desk built into a bedroom the way a couple of our larger homes have. What is here is finished and stocked, built for one or two people rather than a crowd. The bedrooms sit close to each other off the same short hall, so a couple splitting opposite shifts still hears the front door and the kitchen from either room, which some guests count as a plus and others would rather know about ahead of time.

07Who this house suits best

This house works best for one or two people. A travel nurse or medical staffer on a monthly contract at Health Central in Ocoee or AdventHealth Apopka gets a short, direct drive and a bedroom of their own; two clinicians sharing an assignment can split the king room and the two-bed room and each keep a bathroom most mornings. A remote worker spending a season here gets a quiet house on the far west side, away from downtown's event calendar, with a dining table that works as a desk once the living room TV goes quiet.

It also suits a single employee on a short business assignment who does not need a big house, and anyone relocating to Orlando who wants a month on the quiet west side before choosing a neighborhood to settle in. Hiawassee, Ocoee and Apopka all sit within a short drive, so a month here doubles as a look at that whole corner of the metro. What it does not suit as well is a big group: at two bedrooms and two bathrooms, it works best for a household of one to four, and a reunion, a crew or a family of six will do better in one of our larger homes.

The two full bathrooms matter more here than they would in a bigger house, since there is no third one to fall back on. A single guest can use both interchangeably; two guests sharing get a private bathroom apiece instead of one shared down the hall. The same goes for the full-size washer and dryer: for a nurse coming off a run of night shifts, or a remote worker who does not want to find a laundromat, having a real machine in the house is worth more over a month than it looks on a features list.

08What's around the house

Hiawassee is the farthest west of our neighborhoods, a residential community between Silver Star Road and Clarcona-Ocoee Road, and the trade for that distance is quick access to the SR-429 beltway north toward Apopka and Ocoee. The rebuilt Publix at Metro West Village, reopened in 2025, is the closest full grocery store; west on Colonial toward Ocoee there is a second Publix and a large Walmart Supercenter open from early morning to late evening. West Oaks Mall in Ocoee covers general shopping, anchored by JCPenney and a Dillard's clearance store, with a fourteen-screen AMC theater and a food court of around eighty-five shops.

For meals, the Hiawassee Road restaurant row through MetroWest is the everyday option: Tacos Don Andres for birria, Habibi Lebanese Grill for shawarma, a sushi bar and Marco's Pizza, with Teak Neighborhood Grill over on Kirkman Road for burgers, craft beer and a weekend brunch. Mecatos Bakery & Cafe on South Hiawassee Road is the closest sit-down coffee stop, strong on Colombian pastries. Our Hiawassee and west-side area guide covers the rest of daily life here, groceries, gyms and pharmacies included.

Wekiwa Springs State Park springs01 · Ebyabe · CC BY-SA 3.0 · resized from 3264x2448

This corner of the portfolio is the greenest one, and it is the reason to pick this house over a more central one. Wekiwa Springs State Park holds a spring that runs 72 degrees year round; you swim or snorkel in it, rent a canoe or kayak at the concession for around $17 for the first two hours, and pay about $6 a carload to get in, with gates open 8 a.m. to sunset. A little farther on, Kelly Park's Rock Springs run is a natural lazy river you float on a rented tube for about $5 a vehicle; it fills up early on warm weekends. Magnolia Park on Lake Apopka adds a fishing pier, a boat ramp and free-roaming peacocks for a slower afternoon.

This is also the most car-dependent of the four areas we cover. There is no SunRail line or other rail transit out here, so a car covers every trip, and a SunPass or E-PASS transponder pays for itself on the tolled SR-429 and SR-408 over a stay of any length. Pharmacies sit at the Publix and the Walmart on Colonial, and a 24-hour Planet Fitness on Silver Star Road covers a gym membership for the length of a stay, with Crunch and EOS closer to the mall in Ocoee.

09Getting to work, the hospitals and the parks

All of the figures below are typical road-routing times without traffic; the tolled SR-429 and SR-408 add cost on the routes north and east, more than they add time except at rush hour.

Orlando Health Health Central in Ocoee is about 12 minutes away, the shortest hospital drive from this house and the reason we point west-side clinical assignments here. AdventHealth Apopka and AdventHealth Orlando's main campus both run about 16 minutes. Downtown's Orlando Health / ORMC campus is about 18 minutes, Arnold Palmer and Winnie Palmer about 19, and AdventHealth Altamonte and AdventHealth Winter Park both come in around 18 as well. The Lake Nona medical corridor is the outlier from here: Nemours Children's Hospital and the Orlando VA Medical Center are both about 40 minutes, the longest hospital drives in our set.

Beyond the hospitals, downtown Orlando and Creative Village are both about 17 minutes, and the MetroWest office corridor is about 12. Valencia College's West Campus is about 13 minutes and Lockheed Martin's Sand Lake Road campus about 23. UCF's main campus and Central Florida Research Park both run about 36 minutes on the far side of the metro, and the Lake Nona employers, KPMG's Lakehouse among them, sit around 40. Orlando International Airport is about 39 minutes, worth knowing if an assignment starts or ends with a flight.

A few more campuses worth knowing from this side of the metro: Westgate Resorts' headquarters is about 16 minutes, ADP's Maitland offices about 15, and Rollins College in Winter Park about 22. Darden Restaurants' headquarters and the Rosen hotel campuses both run in the 25-to-26-minute range, and the Heathrow and Lake Mary office corridor is about 29 minutes, a realistic commute for a month-long placement rather than a daily one.

For time off, Wekiwa Springs State Park is about 18 minutes, the same drive as Lake Eola Park downtown; Winter Park's Park Avenue runs about 19. Universal Orlando is about 19 minutes and Epic Universe about 22; Walt Disney World is the longest drive in the set at about 44 minutes. Camping World Stadium, the Kia Center and Inter.co Stadium sit in a 14-to-17-minute band, close enough for a game or a concert without it being the short hop it is from our downtown-edge homes.

10A typical stay here

Most stays here run by the month, and the days settle into a plain routine fast: coffee in the small kitchen before a short drive to Health Central or AdventHealth Apopka, a load of laundry worked into the week since the washer and dryer are full-size and in the house, and a grocery run to the Publix at Metro West Village that restocks the cabinets for real cooking. On a slower evening, the dining table works as a desk for anyone working remotely, and the sectional and the wall-mounted TV cover the rest of the night.

On a day off, Wekiwa Springs is close enough for a half-day trip without planning a whole weekend around it: a morning swim in the spring, a picnic, and you are back at the house by the afternoon. Kelly Park's tube run at Rock Springs works the same way on a hotter day, best reached early since it fills up fast once the sun is out. The small front yard and covered entry are not built for entertaining a crowd, and the house is set up for one or two people who want a quiet street and a short drive to the springs.

For a family in the middle of a relocation search, the same drive works both ways: Ocoee and Apopka are a short run north and west, and downtown Orlando and the AdventHealth and Orlando Health campuses are a straightforward drive east. A month in this house works as a way to see both sides of the metro before signing a lease. The street outside stays quiet after dark, which matters more on a month-long stay than a two-night one. Trash and recycling pickup, mail, and the rest of the small chores of running a household fall on the same weekly rhythm as any other Orange County residential street, one more reason a longer stay here settles in quickly.

11What guests said

These are real reviews from Wekiwa Home's own Airbnb listing, quoted exactly as guests wrote them. The listing carries a 4.69 rating across 36 reviews. The full wall of reviews across all thirteen homes is on our reviews page.

12Booking this house

A stay of a month or longer is booked directly with us on a written agreement naming the house, the dates, the rate and the deposit, with itemized receipts every month after that. A shorter trip, a weekend or a week around a visit to the springs, runs through the house's own Airbnb or Vrbo listing, or a direct inquiry if you would rather skip the platform. You let yourself in without meeting anyone in person; arrival notes with the door code or key location arrive a few days before check-in. Every stay includes the furniture, the beds and linens, the stocked kitchen, the washer and dryer, Wi-Fi and a private parking spot at the covered front entry, with the exact inclusions confirmed in writing when you book.

If a hospital system, a staffing agency or a relocation coordinator is placing you here, the agreement can be written to that organization's name, with a monthly invoice, a W-9 and a certificate of insurance on request, and net-30 terms once the first month is paid. A guest booking for themselves pays the way any leisure guest does, rate and deposit confirmed in writing before you commit. Wekiwa Home is one of the six homes on the site where we publish the neighborhood and zip code, Hiawassee, 32818, instead of a street address; the exact address comes with your arrival details once dates are confirmed.

Extensions run month by month; tell us before your current month ends if an assignment or a house search is running long, and we will hold the next month where we can. Several of our homes take pets, and whether this one can and what deposit applies is confirmed in writing at the same time as the rate. Reach us at (954) 793-1171 or libemapropertiesllc@gmail.com; our how it works page walks through the rest of the process.