A major international real estate company and a top-rated shelter magazine last fall commissioned a survey that found 36 percent of the magazine’s subscribers plan to acquire an additional home within the next two years. Of those who already own three or more homes, a whopping 49 percent plan to acquire an additional one by 2008. 

What are they looking for? Seventy-five percent want waterfront, 48 percent want to be on or near a golf course, and 28 percent want to be on or near ski slopes. And with two of the three in magnificent abundance in Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties (it hasn’t snowed here since, well, forever), it’s a good time to take a look at our piece of paradise.

This area has been a magnet for people seeking the good life ever since land developer J. Hamilton Gillespie traveled here from Scotland in 1886 and built the nation’s first golf links near what is now the downtown Sarasota courthouse area.

In the booming early 1920s, colorful characters such as circus impresario John Ringling and socialite Bertha Honore Palmer (of Chicago’s famed Palmer Hotel family) transformed the little fishing and farming village of Sarasota into a resort destination. Starting in the 1940s and continuing for several decades, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist MacKinlay Kantor, John D. MacDonald of the best-selling Travis McGee mystery novels, sculptor John Chamberlain and other celebrated intellectuals established an artists’ colony here that formed the foundation of Sarasota’s flourishing arts community. Manatee and Charlotte counties, meanwhile, developed as tranquil destinations where retirees, most of them Midwesterners, could enjoy fishing, boating and other outdoor pursuits. 

Times have certainly changed in the 100 years since realtor A.B. Edwards showed properties to newcomers in his horse and buggy. Today, the region is welcoming a flood of new residents drawn here from all over the country and even abroad by the natural beauty of its beaches and public parks; a wealth of arts and cultural offerings, including our own opera, symphony and ballet companies and an internationally renowned botanical garden; and first-rate educational and medical facilities.

Why do newcomers flock to our tri-county area? Take a look at some of its most notable neighborhoods and you’ll see.

THE BEACHES

The warm, blue-green waters of the Gulf of Mexico enchant newcomers from the cold gray North, and many prospective homebuyers look first to waterfront properties on Sarasota’s barrier islands, which locals call the keys. Waterfront properties are the area’s priciest, but real estate pros remind us that, since the supply is finite, they hold their value well. Each of Sarasota’s island communities has its own personality.

For centuries, Longboat Key was a camping ground for native Indians; from the late 1880s to the great hurricane of 1921, it was an agricultural center producing avocados, papaya and tomatoes. Today Longboat Key is a 12-mile stretch of beach-to-bay resort living, from the multimillion-dollar condominiums of the gated Longboat Key Club on the south end to the wooden bungalows, ranch houses, vacation rentals and low-rise condos of the north end’s laid-back Village. Gulf of Mexico Drive, which runs up the island’s spine, is lined with hot-pink oleanders and banyan trees and bordered by a popular bike and jogging trail.

Realtors say Longboat Key attracts people who could live anywhere in the world, and many of the nation’s top retired executives call it their seasonal home. Several years ago, Money magazine singled out the community as one of America’s wealthiest zip codes, and real estate values bear that out. A modest home off the water in the Village now sells for well over $450,000 (if you can find one), and the most luxurious beachfront condos command several million (although smaller, older ones can be found starting at $850,000).

St. Armands is a lovely old neighborhood of eclectic architectural styles that revolves around the world-famous shopping destination of St. Armands Circle. Beautiful Lido Beach and the Circle’s terrific restaurants and upscale boutiques are just a short stroll or bike ride away. Platted in the 1920s by Sarasota’s most colorful developer, circus magnate John Ringling, St. Armands Circle retains a good bit of his razzle-dazzle. On almost any night of the week, tourists line up outside the ice cream shops, and Harley-hopping lawyers take over the corner coffeehouse. Lots of remodeling is taking place on the older canal-front homes that line the quiet, neighborly residential side streets.

You can walk to the lovely public beach on nearby Lido Key, where a wave of new beachfront condominiums has risen, among them Orchid Beach Club and The Beach Residences, adjacent to the ultra-ritzy new Ritz-Carlton Beach Club. Nearby Lido Shores was the site of last spring’s Symphony Designer Showhouse, a modernist mansion with huge panes of glass that’s on the market for $4.8 million; nearby, fashion designer-turned builder Adrienne Vittadini has her new, classically styled home on the market for $11 million.

Bird Key, a 510-home enclave just off the Ringling Causeway, has canal-front and bayfront homes with manicured front lawns and dramatic city skyline views. Also originally owned by John Ringling, the key was the Arvida Corporation’s first big Sarasota development in the early 1960s. Bird Key is a boater’s dream, and the Bird Key Yacht Club is the hub of social life here. A mix of executives, physicians, recently retired baby boomers, at least one rock ’n’ roll superstar and a controversial national talk-show host live here, but we’re not naming  any names.

Home to a popular public beach that has won a “world’s whitest sand” contest, Siesta Key is the most family-oriented of the area’s barrier islands. Residential options range from multimillion-dollar waterfront mansions hidden behind private walls to mid-century modern houses to the older mid-rise condominiums on the island’s south end. The heart of the key is the surfer-dude-cool Village, with its outdoor eateries, funky shops and ice cream stands. Some people swear the perfect date is a sunset beach walk followed by a daiquiri at a Village watering hole.

Tucked behind sea grapes and bougainvillea, unpretentious family compounds for the rich and private once predominated on Casey Key, a quiet residential enclave on nine lush Gulf-to-bay miles. Today many of them are being razed, and monumental residences are replacing them: two 20,000-plus-square-foot homes were recently completed. Last winter, a six-acre Gulf-to-bay compound was listed at $23 million. Who’s buying? “People from the Northeast and Midwest who looked at Naples and decided this was a better buy,” says Tom Stone of Michael Saunders & Company, himself a former Casey Key resident.

To the south, 7.5-mile Manasota Key straddles Sarasota and Charlotte counties between Lemon Bay and the Gulf. Narrow Manasota Key Road, with its dense tree canopy, seems like a road into Florida’s past. Midway down the island is a jumble of historic wooden cottages now known as The Hermitage Artist Retreat. The nonprofit organization, founded by the Sarasota County Arts Council, brings artists, musicians and writers to its unspoiled beachfront campus to draw creative inspiration from the setting. 

SARASOTA

Meandering along Sarasota Bay, the city of Sarasota, population 53,000, is the seat of county government, arts and culture. Its history is inextricably intertwined with John Ringling, who made Sarasota the winter headquarters of his famed Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and who built his over-the-top Italianate palazzo, Cà d’Zan, on the Sarasota bayfront. Ringling also built the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art to house his priceless collection of Baroque art and willed it to the state of Florida. Today, the museum complex, owned by Florida State University, is Sarasota’s biggest tourist attraction. It recently celebrated the completion of an unprecedented $76 million renovation and expansion, making it one of the largest public art museums in the nation.

Two of the area’s oldest established bayfront neighborhoods, Indian Beach and Sapphire Shores, comprise the popular museum area, so named for its proximity to the Ringling Museum. A thriving cultural district, the area also claims the FSU Center for the Performing Arts (home of the Asolo Repertory Theatre and Sarasota Ballet), New College of Florida and a branch of the University of South Florida. Tree-lined Bay Shore Road travels the length of these historic north Sarasota neighborhoods, which are filled with a mix of meticulously renovated estates and modest Craftsman-era bungalows from the turn of the last century.

Homes along Sarasota Bay in the museum area command the highest prices, of course, and some of them are Sarasota’s most expensive (one recently sold for $12 million); but even the smallest non-waterfront houses in this desirable area start in the $200,000s. The newest additions to the residential mix are 23 modern pavilion-type homes that “will pay homage to the Sarasota School of Architecture [a mid-century modernist movement that won international attention],” says architect Guy Peterson, a developer of The Houses of Indian Beach, now under construction.

From the ribbon of 1970s-era mid-rises that ring Gulfstream Avenue to the swanky new Residences at The Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota, downtown’s condominium choices are soaring. An explosion of high-end condominium construction over the past few years is yielding several new complexes, Rivo at Ringling, Alinari at Rosemary Place, 1350 Main and Broadway Promenade among them. On Golden Gate Point, the tiny spit of land near Bayfront Park, luxury high-rises like Grand Riviera and Le Reve Dore are pushing out the laid-back 1950s and ’60s-era two-story apartment buildings.

Downtown condo prices continue to climb, too; the average sale price in 2006 was $831,700, with the highest topping out at $4.8 million, according to Candy Swick of Candy Swick & Company. “Downtown condos appeal to people who are coming off the barrier islands, are not interested in golf course communities and don’t want to go east of town,” says Cheryl Loeffler, of SKY Sotheby’s Realty. “Young professionals also enjoy the vibrancy of downtown.”

For those who desire downtown ambiance but like to keep both feet on the ground, downtown’s single-family neighborhoods are appealing alternatives. Young professional families and empty nesters have freshened up Laurel Park’s Craftsman bungalows and Mediterranean Revival cottages. Devonshire Park, with 26 New Urbanist homes to be constructed starting just under $1 million, is the neighborhood’s newest development. Nearby Towles Court is a thriving artists’ colony where brightly painted, Florida Cracker-style cottages house galleries and coffeehouses. A monthly gallery walk attracts hundreds of browsers. Urban frontiersmen are also turning to up-and-coming Gillespie Park, north of Fruitville Road, where old bungalows around a 10-acre park are being rehabbed and sold to young professionals. Citrus Square, a mixed-use development of condos and retail to be built on Orange Avenue between Fourth Street and Boulevard of the Arts, was recently announced; prices start in the mid-$200,000s.

OSPREY AND NOKOMIS
The once sleepy, unincorporated communities of Osprey and Nokomis, located between Sarasota and Venice, are awakening to tremendous residential and commercial growth.

Almost 100 years ago, Osprey was the winter home of Chicago socialite Bertha Palmer, wife of hotel magnate Potter Palmer. She came to Sarasota County in 1910 and snapped up tens of thousands of acres of wilderness, intent on utilizing it for cattle ranching, citrus groves and real estate development. Her bayfront estate, Osprey Point, is now being managed as Historic Spanish Point by the Gulf Coast Heritage Association. Here, the public can tour Mrs. Palmer’s water garden, sunken garden, Duchene lawn and fern and jungle walk. 

Nearby Oscar Scherer State Park, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, offers 15 miles of nature trails, campgrounds and plenty of paddling opportunities on South Creek.

Until now, the elegant Oaks Country Club has been the biggest development in Osprey, but that will change when Bay Street Village & Town Center is completed. This 45-acre mixed-use community, now under construction, will include shops, offices, restaurants, a new public library and some 500 condominiums designed within the New Urbanist framework of live-work-shop-play.

In neighboring Nokomis, the southern gateway to Casey Key, developer Henry Rodriguez is planning a 220-acre mixed-use development along S.R. 681 that will eventually include 1,950 residences and 240,000 square feet of commercial space.

VENICE

In 1925, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE), a railroad union based in Cleveland, Ohio, purchased 55,000 acres in south Sarasota County and hired renowned Boston architect and planner John Nolen to create a resort city that would lure well-off winter residents from the cold Midwest. BLE realtors courted potential buyers with everything from lobster-and-candelabra picnics on the beach to hunting expeditions in the wilds of eastern Sarasota County. It worked; by the late 1920s, charming little Venice had a winter population of several thousand.