Become an AJ Shades Dealer in Highlands County

Highlands County counted 101,232 residents in the 2020 Census, the Heartland of Florida, named for the ridge country that sets it apart from the flatlands. Sebring anchors it, the county seat built around the circle downtown and known worldwide for the Sebring International Raceway, the historic circuit, opened in 1950 on a former airfield, that hosts the Twelve Hours of Sebring endurance classic every March. Race week fills every rental in the county, and the lakefront homes that host the crews are some of the best shade prospects in the Heartland.

The county’s other anchor is Lake Placid, the Town of Murals: more than 40 larger-than-life murals painted across its downtown buildings, a free open-air gallery started in the early nineties that turned a small citrus town into a destination. The same town is the Caladium Capital of the World, the vast majority of the planet’s caladium bulbs are grown on the farms around Lake Placid, and the annual caladium festival is the county’s signature weekend. This is a community that understands heritage and craft, and it buys from vendors who respect both.

The product logic in Highlands is lake-first. The county sits on a chain of freshwater lakes, Lake Jackson at Sebring, Lake Istokpoga (among the largest lakes in Florida), Lake June in Winter, and dozens more, and lakefront stock is the premium market: homes built for the evening over the water, which means mosquitoes at dusk and western glare at sunset. Motorized zip-track screens seal the lanai against the insects; retractable awnings tame the glare. One catalog, both conversations.

The working character of the county shapes the pitch. Citrus groves, cattle ranches, the Avon Park Air Force Range, Highlands Hammock State Park, among the oldest state parks in Florida, opened in 1931, with its ancient hammock trails, and the Archbold Biological Station’s scrub research to the south. Highlands buyers are durability buyers: they ask what it is made of, who backs it, and how long it lasts. American-made, veteran-owned, 15-year factory warranty, the whole pitch fits on an index card, and it is exactly the index card this county wants to read.

The rural math is the dealer’s friend. The market is smaller than the coastal counties and the shade competition is thinner, which means one dealer can own the entire county outright. The lakefront stock writes the premium tickets, the ranch homes and retiree subdivisions write the volume, and the recover trade on the county’s aging awnings writes the margin. Nobody is fighting you for this territory.

The lake culture runs deeper than the waterfront. Lake Istokpoga’s bass fishery draws anglers from across the state, and the county’s lakefront retirement subdivisions, the golf-course communities ringing Sebring’s lakes, concentrate homeowners whose evenings are built around the water. These are screen-and-awning buyers by lifestyle: the lanai is the living room, the lake is the television, and the dealer who keeps both comfortable owns the street.

Our factory’s in-house installation covers Southern California only, San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. In Highlands County, dealers sell the product and coordinate installation locally, with our training, measuring guidance, and technical support behind every job.