Laura Lerma on More Than 25 Years of MetroWest, Resilience, and the People Who Make a Community
The first time Laura Lerma saw MetroWest, she was on roller skates.
It was 1998. She had recently arrived in the United States, and inline skating was the way she came to know her new home. She would visit a store called Play It Again Sports to trade or repair her skates, then spend hours gliding through the wide, quiet streets of MetroWest, past the tree-lined neighborhoods behind MetroWest Elementary, past the walking paths and the iconic MetroWest fountains.
What she remembers most is how welcoming it felt. “It had that same sense of pride, beauty, and quality of life as Celebration,” she says of those early impressions, “but without feeling exclusive or closed off. It felt open, welcoming, and connected.” For a young woman new to the country, MetroWest offered a first impression of what an American community could be. That feeling, she says, has stayed with her ever since.
Today, more than two and a half decades later, Laura is a real estate broker with 2 Good Realty, with her office in Veranda Park. She has raised her two daughters here, Marina and Isabella, and watched them grow up alongside neighborhood friends from MetroWest Elementary all the way through high school. Marina found a home in gymnastics at one of Florida’s top Olympic-level gyms nearby; Isabella in dance, just off Conroy Road. Their days were a happy blur of carpools and familiar faces. “Seeing my daughters grow up in this community,” Laura says, “surrounded by familiar faces and local friends, has been wonderful.”
She has helped countless other families put down roots here too. And along the way, she has watched MetroWest grow into the community it is today.
As an economist and real estate broker, Laura has watched markets change over the years, but she has always looked beyond the headlines and focused on the fundamentals. The numbers have consistently reinforced her belief in MetroWest as a community that creates value for homeowners, renters, investors, and families alike. She has spent countless hours driving prospective investors and homebuyers down Apopka-Vineland Road, showing them the golf courses, lakes, mature landscaping, and beautiful neighborhoods that reflect what she has always believed is the true character of MetroWest. She wanted them to see what she saw: a community worth investing in.
That belief has been tested, and it has held. Like communities everywhere, MetroWest has had seasons that asked more of the people who call it home. Laura met those moments the same way she met everything else here, by showing up. “What motivated me to stay was not simply a business opportunity,” she says. “It was the people.” She kept introducing newcomers to the neighborhood, kept pointing them toward the lakes and the landscaping and the long-term promise of the place. Time and again, MetroWest rewarded that faith. What she takes from those years is not the difficulty but the resilience: a community that keeps adapting, keeps strengthening, and keeps moving forward.
Her own bet on the neighborhood tells the same story. One of Laura’s dreams was to open her office in Veranda Park. She remembers when the development was first taking shape, elegant and ambitious, unlike anything else in the area at the time. When she signed her lease, some of the surrounding spaces were still empty, and a few people questioned the decision. She believed in the long-term vision anyway. Today, with Veranda Park thriving, she is grateful she chose to plant her future here.
Laura points to Valencia College’s West Campus as one of the community’s greatest and most under-appreciated assets. Over her years here, she has watched it expand into an essential educational resource for thousands of students, her own daughters among them. “It has opened doors for so many local families,” she says. “We take it for granted, but it is amazing what we have right here.”
If she had to describe MetroWest in two words, they would be diversity and resilience. “One of the things I love most is that it brings together people from so many different backgrounds, cultures, professions, and stages of life,” she says. She has watched families arrive as newcomers and build whole lives here, watched their children graduate from local schools and launch careers of their own. “MetroWest has never lost its ability to welcome new people while keeping a strong sense of community. The faces may change, but the spirit of opportunity, diversity, and perseverance stays the same.”
When Laura thinks about what makes MetroWest special, she thinks about people like Veronica Rodriguez. More than twenty years ago, Veronica started as an entry-level assistant in the Serenata community. Today she serves as Property Manager for The Hamptons at MetroWest. What makes her story meaningful, Laura says, is not only her professional growth but the way she leads, with integrity, empathy, and a genuine understanding of the community she serves.
“To me, Veronica represents the best of MetroWest,” Laura says. “Communities are not defined by buildings or roads. They are defined by people who care about others, believe in their neighbors, and dedicate themselves to helping their community succeed.”
As MetroWest marks 40 years, that is the note Laura returns to: optimism, gratitude, and confidence in what comes next. “If we keep investing in people, supporting one another, and believing in the future,” she says, “the next 40 years of MetroWest will be even brighter than the first 40.”
