Tell someone in Beverly Hills you're headed to the park and watch what happens next. Half the time they nod and keep walking. The other half they ask which one you mean, because in this stretch of Citrus County that phrase has been doing double duty for years, pointing at two entirely different places with two entirely different rules for getting in.
One is public, county-run, and free to anyone who shows up. The other requires a membership card and closes its pool for two months every winter. Both host events. Both draw a crowd on weekends. And residents move between them constantly without ever noticing they're switching systems, which is exactly the kind of local confusion that never makes it into a visitor guide.
The Park the County Built
The public one sits off Lake Beverly Drive, a straightforward county facility with a walking trail that loops a small pond, a tennis court, and a shuffleboard setup that gets steady use most mornings. None of that is unusual for a Citrus County park. What is unusual sits just past the shuffleboard courts: a horseshoe compound with 24 regulation pits, the largest such setup in Florida according to the county's own recreation listings.
That number is worth sitting with. Most towns this size have a horseshoe pit or two tucked behind a rec center, an afterthought amenity for retirees who remember when the game was standard at every Florida trailer park. Beverly Hills built out 24 regulation pits in one place, enough to run a real tournament bracket without anyone standing around waiting for a lane. The adjoining community center building on Civic Circle handles the rentals for anyone who wants the main hall or the game room, but the horseshoe compound itself is open-air and first come, first served.
The Park That Requires a Card
The other park operates on a completely different model. The Beverly Hills Recreation Association runs its own pool, basketball courts, a skate area, and a baseball field, all of it membership based rather than open to any resident who wanders in. The pool closes during December and January when the water gets too cold to bother heating, then reopens for the stretch of the year when it actually gets used. Farmers markets and craft fairs rotate through on a regular basis, giving the association's grounds a role the county park doesn't really play: a gathering spot for vendors and crafters rather than just trail walkers and horseshoe players.
The two operate close enough to each other geographically that a newcomer giving directions by street name alone will send a friend to the wrong one. Longtime residents don't think about this because they've internalized which park does what. Everyone else learns the hard way, usually by showing up to a pool that isn't there.
The Detail That Actually Matters
Here's the part that changes how the county park fits into a bigger picture. The Withlacoochee State Trail, a 46 mile paved rail trail that runs through Citrus, Hernando, and Pasco counties, doesn't just pass near Beverly Hills on its way somewhere else. Just before reaching Holder, the trail has a direct intersection with a connector spur that leads straight into Central Ridge District Park.
That means the horseshoe pits, the shuffleboard courts, and the pond loop aren't an isolated neighborhood amenity. They're a trailside stop on one of the longest paved rail trails in the state, the kind of thing a rider coming down from Hernando or up from the Citrus Springs trailhead could roll into without ever checking a map for a detour. Most guides to the Withlacoochee Trail list its major access points, the Citrus Springs trailhead, the Hernando trailhead, Wallace Brooks Park in Inverness, without ever mentioning that a spur off the main line drops a rider directly into a county park with two dozen horseshoe pits waiting.
For anyone who already lives here and already uses the trail, that's not trivia. It's a routing shortcut. A weekend bike loop that starts at home, hits the trail, and ends at the horseshoe pits doesn't require backtracking to a trailhead parking lot. The park is the trailhead, at least for that stretch.
Where the Loop Ends Up
Coming off either park, the corridor that actually feeds the neighborhood is North Lecanto Highway, and it's worth knowing which storefronts anchor it before you're standing in a parking lot deciding where to eat. Bangkok Thai and 220 Barbeque sit within blocks of each other along that stretch, along with Los Magueyes for a Mexican dinner and World Fusion for something less easy to categorize. Cattle Dog Coffee Roasters covers the morning end of the day for residents who grew up in Citrus County without a dedicated coffee shop to call their own, and Breakfast Station handles the sit-down version of the same need.
A few doors down, ArtSea Alcove Ceramic Studio runs pottery classes and seasonal kid programming out of a storefront on that same highway, the kind of small business that doesn't show up in national franchise directories but anchors a Tuesday afternoon for families in the area.
None of these are new discoveries. They're the businesses locals already default to. What's worth noticing is how tightly clustered they are along one road, close enough that a Saturday can start at the county park, move to lunch on Lecanto Highway, and end at the recreation association's farmers market without more than a few minutes of driving between any of it.
The Short Version
Beverly Hills doesn't have one park. It has two systems wearing the same nickname, a free county facility built around horseshoe pits and trail access, and a membership association built around a pool and a farmers market calendar. Confusing the two costs you nothing more than an extra five minute drive, but understanding the difference tells you something the standard visitor writeups miss entirely: the county park isn't a standalone amenity tucked off Lake Beverly Drive. It's a documented stop on a 46 mile state trail, connected by a marked spur just south of Holder, which means the horseshoe pits and the pond loop are as much a piece of regional trail infrastructure as they are a neighborhood hangout.
That's the kind of detail that only shows up when you've actually ridden the trail or asked a neighbor which park they meant. It's also the kind of texture that tends to matter to people who end up living here long enough to learn it themselves, whether they moved in five years ago or five months ago.
If you're weighing a move to Beverly Hills or anywhere else in Citrus or Marion County and want a read on a specific street, a specific park, or what a home near either of these recreation hubs is actually worth, Your Florida Realtor can walk you through it with the kind of local detail that doesn't show up in a portal search.
