GT USA Plans 1,500-Home "Grand Oak" Community on Dade City Cattle Ranch

By Florida Home Vibes

Grazing land off State Road 52 near Ehren Cutoff, west of Dade City — the site of GT USA's proposed Grand Oak community.

A working cattle ranch on the western edge of Dade City is the newest target for Pasco County's growth boom. Developer GT USA has filed to rezone the 1,745-acre Grand Bar Ranch off State Road 52 near Ehren Cutoff for a planned community called Grand Oak — up to 1,500 single-family homes on land that's been used for ranching and timber for generations.

Where It Is

The site sits north of SR 52 in the corridor between U.S. 41 and Interstate 75, inside Pasco's Rural Transition Area — a zone meant to bridge the county's denser suburbs to the west and its still-rural stretches further east. GT USA also picked up an adjacent parcel previously owned by KATL, giving the project a bit more room to work with once it moves through the county's planning and public hearing process.

Five Generations of Barthles

Grand Bar Ranch isn't just another parcel that happened to attract a developer — it's a family operation nearly a century old. Joseph A. "J.A." Barthle started running cattle near San Antonio, Florida, in the 1920s and '30s, later bringing his sons Joseph and Albert into the business. Today's ranch is run by Larry and Lynn Barthle and their three children, Ben, Chris, and Kayla — the third through fifth generations of the family. The name itself is a small piece of family trivia: "Grand Bar" comes from the founders being grandchildren of J.A. Barthle. The operation, legally organized as Grand Bar Ranch LLC in 2019, runs a commercial herd of roughly 2,000 head of Brahman, Angus, and Hereford-cross cattle, plus registered American Quarter Horses. The ranch's water use even has its own paper trail — Tampa Bay Water has maintained a Ranch Operators Assistance Program agreement covering cattle-watering wells on the property dating back to the mid-1990s, long before any development plans existed.

Still a Working Ranch, For Now

GT USA's rezoning application says ranching and timberland operations will keep running on the property while the community is built out in phases — not an unusual approach for a large, multi-year master-planned project, but a reminder that any approval is just the first step before dirt actually moves. "GT USA Vice President Mike Wolf said the developer plans to preserve a large part of the natural habitat," according to Laker/Lutz News, putting the preservation figure at roughly 70% of the site. That figure comes from the developer, not an independent county finding — worth keeping in mind as the application moves through review.

Who's Behind Grand Oak

GT USA isn't a household name in Tampa Bay yet, but it's not a small operation either. The Fort Lauderdale-based firm is a partnership between two of Canada's most prolific homebuilders — Greenpark Group and Treasure Hill — which together have built more than 80,000 homes over 55 years across the U.S., Canada, and Italy. In Florida specifically, the company says it has purchased over $100 million in land with another $200 million under contract, part of a broader push into the state's still-undersupplied housing market. Grand Bar Ranch is its latest target, following an earlier deal in the Wellness Way corridor near Clermont, where GT USA sold a 518-acre residential parcel to Pulte for $90 million in 2024.

Not the Only Project on This Stretch of SR 52

Grand Oak is landing in one of the busiest development corridors in Pasco County right now, not an isolated one-off. A few miles away, Eisenhower Property Group is building Verona, a 2,500-home master-planned community on 1,500 acres of a 3,500-acre property along SR 52 west of I-75 — with roughly 2,000 acres set aside as permanent open space, agriculture, or recreation under a restrictive covenant with the county. Home sales there are expected to start in late 2027, with PulteGroup's Del Webb brand alone contributing more than 850 of the homes. Eisenhower already has a second community, Hillcrest, underway nearby with builders including Lennar, Perry Homes, Taylor Morrison, and Dream Finders Homes. Separately, developer Hines has an approved 785-acre mixed-use project at I-75 and SR 52 — 3 million square feet of industrial space plus 2,300 rental and single-family homes, backed by $29 million in county tax credits and projected to add 2,700 jobs.

How Grand Oak Stacks Up Against Pasco's Other Giants

Even at 1,500 homes, Grand Oak is modest compared to Pasco's biggest master-planned communities. Mirada, about 2,000 acres off Curley Road, is built around a 15-acre, 33-million-gallon MetroLagoon and is being built out by Casa Fresca Homes, Homes by WestBay, Lennar, D.R. Horton, and Maronda Homes. Angeline, off SR 54, is on another scale entirely — more than 6,200 acres with homes planned for an estimated 30,000 residents, anchored by a 775-acre Moffitt Cancer Center life-sciences campus expected to bring 14,500 jobs, plus up to 100 miles of trails, a 150-acre county park, and over 3,600 acres of preserved green space. Next to those, GT USA is pitching Grand Oak as something different: low-density and preservation-focused rather than lagoon-and-amenity-heavy.

The Numbers Behind Pasco's Boom

Pasco County's population has climbed from 561,909 at the 2020 Census to an estimated 674,516 today — a 20% jump, or more than 112,000 additional residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The county added 18,326 people in just the most recent year alone, the 16th-largest numeric gain of any county in the country. Builders are keeping pace: Pasco issued permits for 7,878 new homes in 2025 (6,191 single-family, 1,687 multifamily), up 16.5% from the year before — about 13.4 permits per 1,000 residents, well above Florida's statewide rate. That's the backdrop for nearly every rezoning fight and land deal happening along SR 52 right now, including the county's own record-setting move in the opposite direction: in June, Pasco paid $68 million for 1,893 acres of the nearby 4G Ranch specifically to keep a 3,800-home development from being built there. Grand Oak is the flip side of that same growth pressure — a private developer betting demand for new rooftops in this corridor isn't slowing down. One wrinkle worth noting: even as the county grows fast, Pasco Schools' districtwide enrollment actually dipped slightly, from 86,329 students at the end of the 2024-25 school year to 85,811 in 2025-26 — a reminder that rapid population growth doesn't always translate into districtwide enrollment growth, even if a specific new development can still strain schools nearby.

What We Don't Know Yet

A lot of the coverage of Grand Oak so far leans on the developer's own framing, and there are real gaps in the public record as of this writing. We couldn't find an indexed Pasco County staff report, an official rezoning case number, or scheduled Planning Commission/Board of County Commissioners hearing dates for Grand Oak specifically. No traffic-impact study, school-concurrency analysis, or utility-capacity report tied to this application has surfaced publicly yet, and no Pasco commissioner appears to have commented on this project by name. The Barthle family also hasn't said publicly why they decided to sell now — notable given that Larry Barthle spoke in 2024 about wanting to protect the ranch for future generations. Those are the open questions worth watching as this moves through the county's review process.

Early Days, Long Road Ahead

This is still just a rezoning filing — Pasco County planning staff now have to review traffic, school, and utility impacts, and the request has to clear public hearings before anything is approved. Given how long similar-sized projects have taken to move through the county's process elsewhere — Verona, for comparison, isn't expected to start selling homes until late 2027 — don't expect groundbreaking here any time soon. But with the SR 52 corridor now stacking up Grand Oak, Verona, Hillcrest, and the Hines mixed-use project all within a few miles of each other, it's easy to see why developers keep circling this stretch of Pasco.

Sources & Further Reading

• Hoodline — Developer plots 1,500-home takeover of Dade City cattle ranch
• Laker/Lutz News — Business Digest, Grand Oak rezoning details
• FDOT Tampa Bay — SR 52 current projects
• GT USA — company background (Greenpark Group / Treasure Hill partnership)
• GT USA — $90M Wellness Way land deal near Clermont (2024)
• Grand Bar Ranch LLC — official site, family & herd history
• Three Pines Preserve — Barthle Brothers Ranch, five generations of family history
• Tampa Bay Business & Wealth — Verona, Pasco's 2,500-home Eisenhower community
• WUSF — Hines' I-75/SR 52 mixed-use development
• Metro Development Group — Mirada community overview
• Metro Development Group — Angeline community overview
• Moffitt Cancer Center — Pasco County life-sciences campus
• Tampa Bay Times — Pasco's $68M 4G Ranch conservation purchase
• U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts — Pasco County population data