Gulfshore Neighborhoods

Captiva Island

Captiva is separated from Sanibel by a thin swipe of water at Blind Pass. Sanibel-Captiva Road becomes Captiva Drive, along which most of the island's multimillion-dollar homes are found. Homes are hidden behind thick foliage, but passersby get an occasional glimpse of winding, crushed-shell driveways leading to simple cottages, Spanish-Mediterranean mansions and contemporary South Beach-style getaways. Most homes have names and offer either the Gulf or Pine Island Sound in their back yards. "Captiva is all waterfront," says Weaver. "It's a narrow slice of heaven."

Venture farther north and you'll eventually arrive at Captiva's village, a quaint collection of pastel-hued, beachy shops, galleries and boutiques as well as steps-from-the-water homes located along sandy lanes. Restaurants like the Bubble Room, decorated in 1950s movie and TV memorabilia, and the Mucky Duck are within walking distance; golf carts and electric cars are preferred by residents who live farther away. Captiva Beach, ranked among the most romantic in the nation, is never more than two blocks away, and, some say, is the perfect spot to catch the mystical green flash. The gated South Seas Resort occupies the northern two miles of Captiva.

Fort Myers Beach

If you're looking for a lively party, check out Fort Myers Beach, especially in March and April. Southwest Florida's slightly tamer version of spring break hotspots Fort Lauderdale and Daytona, Fort Myers Beach has one of the hippest vibes of the region. Restaurants and bars offer toes-in-the-sand dining, dancing and drinking and an eccentric energy that keeps traffic-automobile and pedestrian-flowing 24/7 around Times Square and Estero Boulevard. Gulf-front homes, older and newer, and more than two dozen beach accesses are sprinkled among the many rental cottages and condos. Side streets offer water in the back yard-canals opening to Matanzas Pass and Estero Bay farther south-and the beach within a block's walk. Most of the island's commerce-seafood restaurants, bars, boutiques, beach shops and tattoo parlors-is located on Estero Boulevard and many, like the Lani Kai, offer on-the-beach musical entertainment and rooftop terraces. Walk the beach or the sidewalk on your pub crawl, or rent a bike or a scooter to get around.

The beach is the star attraction along Estero Island, and never more than a couple of blocks away. The 17.5-acre Bowditch Point Regional Park, located on the island's northern tip, serves as a drop-in point along the newly opened Great Calusa Blueway, a 100-mile canoe/kayak trail meandering through Estero Bay and the scenic bays around Sanibel, Captiva and Pine islands.

Estero Island eventually ends around Lovers Key State Park, Florida's most visited state park. The park spans four islands and is nestled between Fort Myers Beach and Bonita Beach, offering sand paths that wind through mangrove forests and around tidal lagoons to one of two remote beach access points. Canoeing and bicycling are popular here. Dog Beach Park is located along Estero Boulevard and is the only off-leash beach park for dogs in Southwest Florida.

Bonita Beach

Estero Boulevard becomes Hickory Boulevard as it traverses the Broadway Channel. Intermittent beach access provided by the county appears between condos, homes and restaurants as the boulevard travels south six miles to Bonita Beach Road and the Collier County border. Most homes here back up to water, either the Gulf on the west or the back waters of Estero Bay. Three-story Mediterranean architecture is popular; however, you will find Old Florida stilt homes, rentals and original cottages. Prices vary from the low $200,000s to several million dollars.

The two-and-a-half-acre Bonita Beach Park is found at the point where Hickory Boulevard curves into Bonita Beach Road. The county-run park has beach volleyball, a gazebo, restrooms with showers and picnic shelters.

BONITA SPRINGS

Bonita Springs emerged slowly from its slumber as a sleepy fishing town in the late 1980s-a timetable many credit to the arrival of Bonita Bay, a 2,400-acre master-planned community. Now a bona fide city, its population increased 5.97 percent between July 2004 and July 2005. Bonita Springs has dozens of gated communities, upscale shopping centers, top-rated restaurants and a growing base of commercial activity. Neighborhoods have grown along the city's main waterway, the Imperial River, and its major thoroughfares, the Tamiami Trail and Bonita Beach Road.

Bonita Springs clings to its past along Old 41 Road near the Imperial River, where moss-draped trees create a canopy above a city park, and older homes provide a glimpse back in time. The Everglades Wonder Gardens recalls the popular roadside attractions of the 1950s and gives visitors an up-close-and-personal look at 'gators and other indigenous Florida wildlife. The 1920s Shangri-La Springs Resort, where the hot springs reportedly attracted the likes of  Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Franklin D. Roosevelt, is also found in this county-designated historic neighborhood. Many restaurants and stores serve the growing Hispanic population.

Recently listed home prices in Bonita Springs range from the $120,000s for a mobile home or single-bedroom condo to more than $4 million in the gated communities of Bonita Bay and Pelican Landing. The city's growth is also reflected in its annually increasing taxable value, which climbed nearly 31 percent during the last year.

CAPE CORAL

Cape Coral is Southwest Florida's second largest city and the fifth fastest growing metropolitan area in the country, and its once-vacant lots are beginning to sprout homes in various stages of construction. The 115-square-mile city, created in the 1950s by brothers Jack and Leonard Rosen, who marketed the Cape as a winter retreat to Northerners, boasts 400 miles of canals, large freshwater lakes and miles of frontage along the Caloosahatchee River. Until recently it lacked the gated communities that defined other Southwest Florida real estate markets; much of the remaining undeveloped acreage was owned by a single company. Commercial development has been somewhat slow to follow.

Most of Cape Coral's commercial and retail outlets are found along three main roadways-Del Prado Boulevard, Pine Island Road and Cape Coral Parkway, home to the city's downtown, a blocks-long district of pastel-painted restaurants, boutiques and offices that hosts many of the city's annual events such as block parties, arts shows and holiday parades. Dead-end side streets feature a number of smaller neighborhoods, often with still-undeveloped lots and canal frontage, offering no-bridge or one-bridge access to the river and Gulf. An active city-run parks department oversees a number of regional and neighborhood parks, including Sun Splash Family Waterpark, the Four-Mile Cove Ecological Preserve and the Cape Coral Sports Complex.

Riverfront

Many of Cape Coral's first homes were built in the 1950s and '60s along the Caloosahatchee River near Redfish Point, home to the Cape Coral Yacht Club, which offers a boat ramp, a 634-foot riverfront beach, picnic shelters, barbecue grills, a fishing pier, public pool and tennis and racquetball courts. A handful of the original Rosen-built homes still stand on Flamingo Drive. New nearby gated communities-Tarpon Point Marina, built on the site of the Rosens' Rose Garden, and the Marina at Cape Harbour-have introduced an upscale component to the Cape's real estate market. Cape Harbour offers a public waterfront with a marina, shops and Rumrunners, an award-winning restaurant. Inland homes access the river via a thread of wide canals.

Older riverfront homes, built just

30 to 40 years ago, are being razed and replaced by larger million-dollar homes. The most expensive are found in

neighborhoods facing the Fort Myers shore a mile across the river, with views of its two bridges-the Midpoint Bridge and Cape Coral Bridge. Price tags of $3 million and $4 million are now commonplace for homes along

the Caloosahatchee.

Southwest

Cape Coral

Realtors identify Cape Coral's southwest quadrant as the new hot spot. A three-square-mile L-shaped neighborhood west of Chiquita Boulevard, the area offers existing homes, many built within the last 15 years, and vacant lots, some located on the South Spreader Waterway with Gulf access. "It's one of Southwest Florida's safest neighborhoods," says Lenora Marshall, an agent with Century 21 Sunbelt. "There's also a nice mix of families with children, young professionals, retirees and part-time residents," adds her associate Teri Kibbe. Statistics show the average southwest Cape home costs $405,000 for an off-water location and $820,000 for a waterfront home.

North Cape Coral

The Pine Island Road corridor, which links the mainland to the barrier islands of Little Pine Island and Pine Island, has grown up in the past decade. Overgrown, vacant lots on weed-choked streets, paved and platted decades ago, are steadily disappearing, being replaced by modest homes. A Home Depot recently opened at Pine Island Road's intersection with Skyline Boulevard, and other development is quickly following. Also helping the area's rising status are plans to improve Burnt Store Road into Charlotte County.

ESTERO

New "settlement" continues to flourish along or near the Estero River-mainly new-home neighborhoods and commercial development. The scenic river leads eventually to Estero Bay and portions of it remain undisturbed, offering a glimpse back in time. Estero has several gated communities, a major outlet mall (Miromar Outlets), an ice-hockey/entertainment venue (Germain Arena), the new International Design Center, two top-flight hotels (the just-opened Embassy Suites and the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa) and Florida Gulf Coast University, the state's newest college. New shopping centers border the town's north and south boundaries-Gulf Coast Town Center at Alico and Ben Hill Griffin roads and Coconut Point at Coconut Road and U.S. 41.

Though still unincorporated, civic-minded and well-organized Estero residents have created self-governed review boards that make any full-fledged city envious. The boards set standards for Estero's architectural appearance and its streetscape, among other things. They will help to guide the final design plans for the upcoming Estero on the River project, a mixed-use development that will include homes and the 500-seat, $20 million Gulfshore Playhouse Theater. Traces of Estero's past are still visible along Sandy Lane and Broadway Avenue, where banyan trees create a canopy overhead, goats run in small fields next to older homes with screened front porches, and the sprawling champion Mysore fig tree stands sentry at the intersection of the two roads.

FORT MYERS

River District

Downtown Fort Myers, now officially known as the River District to reflect the 40-block area's relationship to the Caloosahatchee River, continues its meteoric development. Two new high-rise condominiums are now open, and an ongoing flurry of activity will bring a total of 3,800 new homes in the next few years. The impetus for the development was an unused waterfront and a vision by master planner Andrés Duany, the father of new urbanism who's credited with reviving Fifth Avenue South in Naples and South Beach in Miami. The design philosophy, says Don Paight, Fort Myers' director of downtown redevelopment, "brings everything together. People can live, work, shop, play and do everything in one area. With rising gas prices it just makes sense to be able to walk to work or take a water taxi or shuttle. It makes for a better lifestyle. You don't spend your life on the road driving."

The city is in the process of a $50 million project that will relocate utilities underground, restore brick streets and reintroduce 1930s-era streetlights into the historic district, which stretches from Bay Street to Second Street and from Monroe to Lee streets. The growing district offers retail stores, restaurants and offices and some residences on second floors. Paight says the surrounding new-home developments, which range from 32-story towers to mixed-use developments and low-rises with resort-style amenities, appeal to the target demographic of urban dwellers.

The River District's nightlife is quiet most weeknights but comes alive on weekends. Favorite haunts include the charming Brick Bar, which often features jazz and blues magicians, Fat Cat's Drink Shack, the Cigar Bar and EnVie and Indigo Room nightclubs. Fine dining is available at The Veranda, Harold's on the Bay, The Morgan House and the new Patio 33. During the day, rub elbows with government employees and attorneys for lunch at Second Street Deli. To the east of the district is historic Dean Park, a neighborhood of 1920s Victorian and Colonial homes and Florida-cottage bungalows that have been lovingly restored by new owners. To the south are the Fort Myers Skatium and the City of Palms Park, the spring-training home of the champion Boston Red Sox.