Gulfshore Neighborhoods

Travel east along San Marco Road and you’ll momentarily leave civilization behind. The road’s nothingness eventually arrives at this tiny fishing village, a handful of crisscrossing streets surrounded by Goodland and Gullivan bays and Coon Key Pass and home to just 200 residents. Isolated from the mainland until the completion of a swing bridge and San Marco Road, built using shells from nearby shell mounds in the late 1930s, Goodland only recently attracted interest in its real estate. Condos are now part of  the existing housing mix, mostly Old Florida homes that sell from the high $300,000s to more than $1 million—a contrast to the town’s 1949 inhabitation by squatters, whom developers relocated from Marco’s Caxambas neighborhood.
Goodland’s population swells each Sunday afternoon when in-the-know visitors and residents flock to Stan’s Idle Hour Seafood Restaurant. Nearly 5,000 people converge on Goodland each January for Stan’s three-day Mullet Festival, celebrating the fish, not the 1980s hairstyle. Fried and smoked mullet are on the menu, and Stan’s crowns a Buzzard Lope Queen and Princess. (Owner Stan Gober wrote The Buzzard Lope Song).

NAPLES

Naples is known internationally as a favorite winter retreat for celebrities and others in the rich-and-famous set. With its world-famous beaches, cosmopolitan shopping and dining along Fifth Avenue South, Third Street South and the newly renovated, designer-studded Waterside Shops, gracious beachfront homes and venue for the country’s premier wine festival each January, Naples’ star is on the rise. National media coverage of ritzy real estate seldom fails to mention this city by the sea. Naples has some of the most enviable addresses in the country, and it’s no wonder that those who live on the outskirts (the official boundaries incorporate just 12 square miles) consider themselves Neapolitans. Its mix of neighborhoods and homes—from gated country club communities to beachfront mansions and historic beach cottages to luxury condo communities—adds to its charm. So does its rating in 2005 as the No. 1 Small Art Town in America, a credit to Naples’ offering of galleries, arts fairs, art centers, theaters and the Philharmonic Center.
Most of Greater Naples’ three-dozen or so gated communities have been developed along the area’s major roads—Immokalee Road, Airport-Pulling Road, Tamiami Trail, Goodlette-Frank Road and Livingston Road. Their arrival along less developed stretches of road often signal the next hot growth spot, with shopping centers, restaurants and office parks popping up soon after. The completion of the Livingston Road extension created a major north-south link between south Naples and Lee County, and now boasts the new North Collier Regional Park, featuring a 6,000-square-foot RecPlex facility with state-of-the-art fitness center, walking trails, a boardwalk spanning a wetland preserve and the Sun-n-Fun Lagoon water park.
Areas of Livingston Road and Vanderbilt Beach Road near I-75 are home to several equestrian estates and riding schools. Five-acre tracts provide ample room for barns and riding arenas in Livingston Woods, offering just under 400 single-family lots, large enough for horses, homes and guest homes. The neighborhood features a nice mix of Old Florida-style homes with front porches and widow’s walks and Mediterranean estates on lots of typically one to two acres. It’s also close to the Community School, Barron Collier High School, shops and restaurants. The northern sweep of Livingston includes several gated communities: Tuscany Reserve, Mediterra, Delasol and Milano.
Small neighborhoods and gated communities intermingle with some of the most exclusive private golf courses—the Royal Poinciana Club and the Hole in the Wall—along Goodlette-Frank Road, whose southern terminus boasts Bayfront, a vividly painted mixed-use development of high-end boutiques, restaurants, art galleries and four floors of luxury condos. Tin City, Old Naples and Fifth Avenue South are close by, and residential amenities include a heated pool, tennis courts, fitness center, on-site boat slips and a clubhouse.
Hot right now is Collier Boulevard, where new gated communities join un-gated 1960s and 1970s neighborhoods along many of the boulevard’s radiating roadways. The link to Marco Island, Collier Boulevard, gets increasingly upscale as it heads west, passing the 3,000-acre Lely Resort, Treviso Bay brushing against the 25,000-acre Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, and the 4,000-acre Fiddler’s Creek.

Aqualane Shores

This neighborhood of 350 estate-size homes is just north of Port Royal, placing it just blocks from the beach and the exclusive shops and restaurants of Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South. Developed by Forrest Walker & Sons in the late 1950s, all but 30 of Aqualane Shores’ home sites sit on water, either deep-water manmade canals or Naples Bay. Like its neighbor to the south, the 300-acre Aqualane Shores is prized for its mature, tropical landscaping and tree-shaded streets; however many of those early Walker & Sons homes (home sites originally cost just $2,500) are being torn down and replaced by mega homes. Homes, both old and new, are priced from about $1.5 million.

Lake Park

This neighborhood, set under a canopy of towering trees with traffic-controlling roundabouts, is the more affordable sibling to neighboring Coquina Sands and The Moorings. Hidden behind office buildings fronting Tamiami Trail and a shaded promenade with benches along Goodlette-Frank Road, Lake Park is close to Coastland Center and Fleischmann Park, a mile from the beach and within walking distance of Lake Park Elementary. Many of its houses are originals from the 1950s—smallish two- or three-bedrooms that have been lovingly remodeled or updated. Large lots with pools, mature landscaping and fruit trees are also a big attraction, and prices (primarily in the mid-$400,000s to $700,000s) are what Moorings and Coquina Sands were five years ago.

Naples Park

A 22-by-four-block neighborhood of about 3,000 homes and 10,000 residents, Naples Park is a neighborly sort of place, an amalgamation of new families, retirees and newcomers. Its location to the west of Tamiami Trail places it close to shops, restaurants and Naples’ entertainment venues. Nearby amenities include beach accesses, a library and a public park with racquetball facilities, a jogging path and tennis. Boaters and nature lovers will love spending time at nearby Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Recreation Area. Buyers will find older homes that are typical of those built in the mid-1900s—two bedrooms, one bath and carports—and newer homes, and prices from the $300,000s to more than $1 million.

Old Naples

There’s a certain mystique associated with living in Naples’ original neighborhood. Old Naples packs savvy and sophistication into its two square miles, a sweep that includes new Gulf-front estates and historic cottages, private condominiums and boutique hotels along quiet streets radiating from its two main centers—Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South, offering world-famous shopping at upscale boutiques, galleries, cosmopolitan bars, theaters and parks. In Old Naples, the beach is at best a few steps away and at worst a short bike ride. Residents can opt out of cooking for the evening and walk to dinner or stock up at Tony’s off  Third, an upscale market that offers supplies and staples, wines and cheese, and gourmet dinners to go. Close to beach clubs and marinas, Old Naples gives even landlocked homeowners the chance to own a boat and offers tree-lined green space at Cambier and Rodgers parks. Old-growth trees create a canopy overhead, and blooms and gardens add punches of color to this anything-but-urban scene.

Pine Ridge

Sandwiched between some of Naples’ busiest roadways (Tamiami Trail and Goodlette-Frank Road), Pine Ridge’s neighborhood often surprises first-time visitors with the size and number of its homes, seven large lakes and the presence of horse stables and riding arenas. The neighborhood offers large private lots, often boasting tennis courts, miniature soccer fields, guesthouses and either brand-new or 1970s-era homes. It’s on the east side of Tamiami Trail, just south of Pine Ridge  Road, and the sprawl of commercial development and shopping centers eventually gives way to gracious homes fronting Trail Boulevard. Condos, found in Emerald Woods to the north of the neighborhood boundaries, start in the high $200,000s. Single-family homes, even those sold “as is,” start just below $1 million and top out around $4.5 million.

Port Royal

Perhaps Naples’ most recognizable address, Port Royal was developed more than 50 years ago by John Glen Sample, who built his personal fortune as an advertising executive in Chicago. So smitten was Sample with Naples, he purchased the city’s southernmost two miles along the Gulf and began taming swamplands, hammocks and beachfront into roughly 560 mostly waterfront lots. His ambition was simple, he want to “make this the finest place to live in the United States.” Today Sample’s prophecy holds true. Large shade trees create a canopy above the neighborhood’s streets; manmade peninsulas, coves and bays bring water into most back yards; and manicured hedges and enviable landscaping provide privacy. Many beachfront- property owners have added to their land holdings, acquiring bayfront real estate to dock a boat. Sprawling mansions five times the size of the original 2,000-square-foot homes have replaced those first homes, and property values reach beyond the million-dollar mark. It’s a secluded neighborhood whose fate was determined by the arrival of the Ritz-Carlton, says long-time Naples builder Gary Carlson. “The Ritz brought in a whole new clientele to Naples,” he says. Today prices fluctuate from $2.25 million for a nonwaterfront likely teardown to nearly $25 million.

Royal Harbor, Oyster Bay,
Golden Shores

Royal Harbor is Naples’ only 100 percent waterfront community. All of the 419 single-family homes in this triangle of a neighborhood sit on Naples Bay or a series of deep-water canals that lead to the Gulf. Though located on the east side of the bay, Royal Harbor is close to Tin City, Bayfront, Fifth Avenue South and the beaches. Homes vary from new to 1960s originals; most have pools and docks in the back yard, and cost from about $1 million to $6.5 million. Adjoining Oyster Bay and Golden Shores also offer waterfront homes plus some condos and villas, priced from about $300,000 to $2.1 million.