In a rural pocket of Collier County, 5,000 acres of citrus, sod, pepper and tomato farms have been transformed into Tom Monaghan's field of dreams.

The property, some 23 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, will be the site of Ave Maria University, the nation's first new Catholic university in 40 years. Adjoining it will be the planned community of Ave Maria, where the population is projected to eventually reach 27,000. Both are slated to open next year.

Monaghan, 69, the Domino's Pizza magnate and former owner of the Detroit Tigers, is plowing much of his personal fortune into the projects, which, in various ways, will reflect his vision, hopes and beliefs. "I want this university to be one of the finest in the world, both academically and spiritually," Monaghan says. "That's aiming high. I can't do it in my lifetime, but I can build the foundation for it. I can put everything I have into it, both my money and my time. By the time we get through to the first phase on this new campus, I'm going to be pretty well broke. I mean, I'm not going to starve, but I won't be rich by any stretch of the imagination. And that's fine. What I'm hoping is that other people will like what we're doing and support it and help take it to the next level."

Monaghan is sitting in his modest north Naples office, at Ave Maria University's 12-acre interim campus next to the Vineyards. The Michigan native spends three weeks a month now in Naples, where he lives in a relatively modest "tear-down" house on Vanderbilt Beach. When his wife isn't in town, he says, he often stays overnight here on campus in a dormitory. "Modest" is a word often used to describe Monaghan, who is reserved, thoughtful and soft-spoken. But no one would call his ambitions modest.

"My goal is to help as many people as possible get to heaven," he says. "Intellectually, I know that no goal can be higher than that one. This is my way of trying to do it."

Tom Monaghan's metamorphosis from pizza mogul to the founder of a university and a town is not as unlikely as it may seem. Monaghan spent a lot of his childhood in foster homes and a Catholic orphanage and says he wanted to be a priest by the time he was in second grade. "I always felt that the most important thing in my life was to be a good Catholic. But I would always seem to fall short. I'd think, 'I'm going to get around to it.' As the years went by, I think I became better with my faith. I hope I have some time left because I still have a lot to do."

When he sold Domino's in 1998 for about $1 billion, Monaghan said he was going to use much of the money-"God's money," he called it-to help people get to heaven. The idea that he would do so by creating a Catholic university came to him "gradually," he says, during the years he ran Domino's. In fact, in some ways, Monaghan has been on the same road all of his life, even if its specific destination is only now becoming clear.

"A lot of my stores in the old days were in college towns, and a lot of students worked for me," he says. "Of course, I was living in Ann Arbor, also, where you have one of the largest concentrations of students just about anywhere. So I was very acclimated to an academic environment. I developed some ideas about how higher education ought to be done and finally decided to do it all in one school."

Monaghan is a college dropout who served three years in the U.S. Marine Corps, a stint he credits with giving him a sense of discipline. In 1960, he and his brother Jim bought a pizza business called Dominick's in Ypsilanti, Mich. His brother soon traded his half for their delivery car and Monaghan became the sole owner. He renamed the business Domino's and pioneered the concept of pizza delivery.

Monaghan often worked 14-hour days, seven days a week building Domino's. By the 1970s, there were more than 200 stores in the country. In 1985, sales reportedly topped $1 billion.

His faith helped him succeed, he says. "But it wasn't always what it should have been. It's been a long process." In 1973, he began attending daily Mass, which he calls "an important step, spiritually . I started doing it because I'd read that Don Shula went to Mass every day, and he'd just had the perfect season with the Dolphins. And I thought, 'Gee, if he's got the time to do that, why can't I?' Another big step was a year or two later when at one of the daily Masses the priest gave a homily about the importance of saying the rosary. So I started doing it every day, and I've been doing it ever since."

Still, he questioned whether his faith was strong enough. "I worked long hours. I worked years without vacations. I'd take off four days a year, year after year. I lived without things. I lived in a house trailer. I bought a house without furniture. And I'd think, 'That's good, you're looking ahead, you're not collecting things like other people.' But, in truth, it was just a way of saying, 'I have less now, so I can have more later.'"

The revelation came to him one evening in 1989 while he was reading C.S. Lewis' book Mere Christianity. The chapter on pride, entitled "The Great Sin," changed his life, he says. "It had a very dramatic effect because it was talking to me. I had started making money about 1980. Before that, I was always in debt. After having struggled for so many years and then all of a sudden hitting it big, I kind of got caught up in collecting things. Cars, buildings, yachts. And C.S. Lewis said, 'You're just doing this because you want to impress people.' And that hit me right between the eyes. It changed me overnight. It was something I didn't like to admit, but he said it so well. And I hate braggarts, but I really was one myself. I thought, 'Why am I working this hard? Why did I do this all these years? Why did I go without things? So I could have more later. More of what? More than others.' I remember being awake all night, thinking about it."

Monaghan was building a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired mansion at the time. He halted construction the next day. Then he sold off his antique cars. "I stopped everything overnight and said I was going to live differently. I didn't give up luxury, but I gave up ostentatious things. I can't live like a monk. I'm married and have children. But I looked at things differently."

In 1992, he sold the Detroit Tigers for $85 million. Increasingly, he gave to Catholic causes. Several years earlier, he had started Legatus, an organization of Catholic business leaders; it now has 2,100 members.

Among the projects he funded in the 1990s were a Catholic cathedral in Nicaragua and several Catholic schools in Central America. In 1998, Monaghan founded Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which he hoped to build into a university. Two years later, the Ave Maria School of Law opened in Ann Arbor. In addition, he founded the Thomas More Law Center, a public interest, nonprofit law firm that works on legal cases around the country supporting Christian causes.

After selling Domino's, Monaghan's plan was to build a Catholic university in Ann Arbor. But in early 2002, the Ann Arbor Township turned him down. "We'd had our battles with the township. It's a very low-growth region and very liberal. I've been a Republican throughout my adult life. I'm very pro-life. This was just another battle, and we lost."

For several years, Monaghan and his family had visited Naples, spending Christmas week at the Ritz-Carlton.

Four years ago, he says, "I got the idea that Naples would be the ideal place for the university. It just seemed right. It has the weather. It has a certain image, which will be ideal for attracting students, faculty and lecturers. And there's also no other Catholic university or college in this part of Florida. It's a very underserved area."

Also, it has a favorable political climate. "We've felt very welcome here," he says.

At first, Monaghan planned to build the university at a site in north Naples. But as he was about to purchase a parcel of land, an eagle was spotted on the property, jeopardizing his plans. "If the eagle had a nest there, it would have made it impossible, because by law you can't build anything within 1,500 feet of the nest. So we asked for a week's delay while we checked it out.

"It was during that week that we got the call from Paul Marinelli [of the Barron Collier Companies]. He said, 'I'll give you all the land you need to build a campus, and we'd like to build a town around it.'

"At first we turned it down because the site seemed too far inland. But after studying it a little more, we decided to take it. Then we proposed that we'd buy half the land for the town from them and become partners, which we did. At one point, Marinelli said, 'Do you want to build a campus, or do you want to be a developer?' I said, 'I'd like to do both.' That's how the partnership with the [Barron] Collier Companies was started. It's been a very satisfying thing."

Site plans for the town of Ave Maria are thumb-tacked to the wall of a conference room at the Barron Collier Companies' offices. Outside, at the busy intersection of Airport-Pulling Road and Golden Gate Boulevard, an overpass is under construction to accommodate the area's rapid growth.

Paul Marinelli, president and CEO of the Barron Collier Companies, is explaining how Ave Maria will differ from other developments in the state. "This community," he says, "will be an alternative to sprawl, what's known as a cluster development. I believe the concept of self-sustainable towns is going to be the wave of the future."

The Barron Collier Companies' partnership with Monaghan is a result of the Florida Rural Land Stewardship Program, he says, which was passed in 2001. The program sets guidelines for creating small communities in the context of rural landscapes, encouraging a balance between development and wildlife preservation.

"The RLSP provided for the establishment of a small town or a village," Marinelli says. "When I heard that Ave Maria was possibly looking for a site, I initiated the call to Tom. I was actually looking for a catalyst for a new town. It just made sense to me that a new Catholic university would be a perfect opportunity."

The town of Ave Maria will include 11,000 residences at build-out and more than a million square feet of retail space, according to Marinelli. The town will comprise about 4,000 acres, the university about 1,000 acres. Six residential developments will be constructed, with housing for retirees as well as families. Although custom homes will be part of the mix, one of the objectives of the community is to provide affordable housing. Marinelli says he would like to keep the median price under $300,000. The Barron Collier Companies is also setting aside 17,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land, which will never be developed. Marinelli says the town will be built out in approximately 15 years.

"We envision this as a community that has a traditional hometown feel," he says. The showpiece of the town and the university will be the 100-foot-tall oratory, which, as planned, would contain the world's largest crucifix. It will have seating for about 1,100. The oratory will be part of a Town Center, which Marinelli compares to Naples' Fifth Avenue South. The unincorporated town will also include parks, schools, a YMCA, a healthcare center affiliated with Naples Community Hospital, a library, a post office and emergency medical services. The campus design will show the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright, Monaghan's favorite architect.The first houses will be available in the spring of 2007 and the university is scheduled to open that August.

Because the town of Ave Maria is being partnered with a Catholic university, there has been speculation that it will be a Catholic town. That isn't the case, Marinelli says. "It is not going to be restricted in any way. It is a town that is going to be open to all individuals of any race, creed and ethnicity."

In the spring of 2005, Monaghan told a Boston audience that he envisioned Ave Maria as a town that doesn't sell pornography or contraceptives, where even the cable television channels will be controlled. He now acknowledges that this may be unrealistic. "That's something that would be my preference," he says. "But we're not going to break the law. I think a lot of people who come here won't be interested in that sort of thing. But the [Barron] Collier Companies will be running the town. Our emphasis is on the university."

Nicholas Healy, president and CEO of the university, says the town of Ave Maria "is not in any sense designed to be a Catholic town. Obviously the university is a committed Catholic institution, and its cultural expressions and intellectual expression will be deeply Catholic. I do think the university will be an influence on the town. Our main ethos is to be family-oriented, to create a hometown feel. I'd be surprised if sexually explicit magazines are going to be on sale. Not because of any restrictions, but just because I don't think they'd sell. But it's a free market.

"I do believe that when young people are encouraged to live a moral life, and when they are taught by professors who love what they're teaching and believe what they're teaching, it's a happier life," says Healy. "They can have a lot of fun without drugs or alcohol or sex."

Healy, a former vice president of Franciscan University in Ohio, says he was about to retire to a farm in New Hampshire in 1999 when Monaghan asked him to become president of the new university. Healy had first met Monaghan in the mid-1980s and has worked with him on several projects.

Also on board is Rev. Joseph Fessio, Ave Maria's provost. Fessio studied under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI, and is the English-language publisher of the Pope's books. Rev. Matthew Lamb is the director of the graduate school of theology. Monaghan calls him "maybe the best theologian in the United States."

Monaghan says that hiring the best Catholic leaders and faculty members is one means of attracting the best student body. "Most of our faculty and staff are serious Catholics-although I'd rather have a non-Catholic than a mediocre Catholic. I see us as being in the very top tier academically and being truly a national school. It already is, as small as we are. I think we already have 42 states represented.

"We have a strong spiritual element. I think that's something that's needed, or I wouldn't be doing this. We're not going to be ashamed about our Catholicism. Every student has to take theology or philosophy every semester. Half of our students go to Mass every day. I would estimate that three-quarters go to confession at least once a month. The reason we're here, and we emphasize this, is we're probably providing more vocations for the priesthood than any other school. We have the best doctorate for theology in the world and, I think, the best master's program.

"I see Ave Maria as being the school where kids get their money's worth, where they get a good, solid liberal-arts education and where they come out well rounded. Not only in academic areas but in their faith. And when they come out, they're better able to face the world and raise good families."

Students at Ave Maria are required to live in dorms on campus, he says, unless they're commuting from home; all dorms are single-sex.

Ave Maria's first graduating class last year included 23 students. There are now more than 400 enrolled and a full-time faculty of about 40. Eventually, there will be 5,500 students ("That won't be in my lifetime," says Monaghan). The school will have a student-to-faculty ratio of about 15 to one, lower than most universities.

Sports are in Ave Maria's future, says Monaghan, including possibly a football team. "Some people think sports are a distraction. I think they're an important part of the experience, if they're done right. Everything has to be squeaky clean. We can't compromise the academics. Every coach has to be a role model."

Monaghan says he is both encouraged and discouraged by the moral climate in the country. "There are reasons to be encouraged. Many young people are coming to the church. They have seen the materialism of their parents and want to do things differently."

Monaghan arrives first at Ave Maria's administrative offices each morning, and says he plays his e-flat alto horn for about a half hour before others arrive. He attends morning prayers at 7:40 and Mass at 7:50. Often, there are business meetings in the evenings.

"This is pretty much a full-time thing," says Monaghan, who has no plans to retire. An inspiring man with clear vision, Monaghan says he is pleased that the Ave Maria project has gone so smoothly so far, particularly after the "battle" in Ann Arbor Township. "This community has been welcoming. I think they see us as fitting in, with our emphasis on the arts and music and culture."

The "real battle," he says, "is one of good against evil . You're never going to satisfy everyone if you're doing something important. And this is the most important thing I can think to do with my resources."

What does Tom Monaghan want his legacy to be? "I would hope I don't care," he says. "I'm not looking for rewards. I don't put my name on anything. I get my reward in heaven."