How Southwest Florida got its Glow

Southwest Florida proves that Field Of Dreams got it right: build it and they will come. All it took was two top-drawer hotels and a little marketing savvy to make the region what it is today: a world-class destination for wealthy travelers and executives and home to an affluent population known for its luxurious lifestyle.

The opening of the Ritz-Carlton, Naples, in December 1985, and the Registry Resort, originally a condo-hotel, a year later, ushered in a glittering new era for Naples. Timing is everything, and the arrival of these high-end meccas, together offering 900-plus rooms, the completion of I-75 and the opening of a new and larger Southwest Florida International Airport terminal all combined to make what had been a well-heeled but low-profile Florida town accessible-and fashionable.

Without the Ritz-Carlton's stamp of approval, would homebuyers today be paying millions for a vacation home or $250,000 for a golf course membership? Would Fifth Avenue South have evolved into one the most elite shopping destinations in the country? Would luxury retailers Tiffany, Hermès, Gucci and Louis Vuitton be opening new boutiques at Waterside Shops? Maybe, but a compelling case can be made that the Ritz raised the region's profile and attracted visitors, including royalty (Prince Albert and Prince Rainier of Monaco), politicians (Margaret Thatcher), and rockers and Hollywood stars (Cher, Jerry Seinfeld, the Rolling Stones, Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke, Regis Philbin and Mariah Carey, to name just a few). And many who came for a visit liked what they saw enough to stay.

Many longtime residents contend that the Ritz only made public what locals already knew. "Naples has always been a playground for the wealthy," says Naples real estate broker Ross McIntosh. "It has always had an upper-crust cachet, although it wasn't as extravagant as it is today. The Ritz and the Registry, and the opening of the airport and I-75 brought our appeal to a larger market."

"Like-minded people tend to gather together," says JoNell Modys of the Greater Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Since Naples was founded, it's attracted people like Walter Haldeman, a wealthy newspaper publisher, and others entrenched in the corporate world. It's been our tradition." But she agrees that the Ritz "really elevated that level of luxury."

Yet back in the mid-'80s, the Ritz wasn't the household name it is today, let alone a synonym for world-class luxury. There was only the original Ritz in Boston (in operation since 1927) and plans by the newly formed Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, which had purchased the Boston landmark and the Ritz name, to build two Atlanta business hotels and two resorts in California and Naples.

"Some people questioned why we were building such a grand dame hotel in a tiny, tiny city," says Edward Staros, vice president and managing director of the hotel and a member of the Ritz opening team. "Here was this beautiful beachfront community with a gorgeous new airport and new interstate highway and a sensational beach. And it was a direct shot from the East Coast to Atlanta and Naples. We thought, 'What a wonderful location for a five-star resort.'"

While Naples already had three landmark beachfront hotels-the Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club, the Vanderbilt Inn and the Edgewater Beach Hotel & Club-none was quite at the level of the Ritz, and its arrival was welcomed by local hoteliers.

"The Ritz has been fantastic for us," says Michael Watkins, third-generation owner of the Naples Beach Hotel. "It had always been a challenge to get people to come to Naples. The Ritz and the Registry brought in a new market that we'd never been able to develop. Before the Ritz, we were the high market in town and had no competition. Our rates were as high as we could go but always underneath what I thought we could get."

And every time the Ritz raised its rates, "we raised ours," John E. Ayres Sr., former managing director of the Edgewater Beach Hotel and one-time chairman of the Naples Visitors Bureau, says with a smile.

Realtors have long known that Naples' visitors eventually turn into buyers. A first-time vacation or business-sponsored conference leads to a longer stay the following year, then a part-time home and often a full-time residence. And catering to business is exactly how the Ritz got its start-that, and a little dumb luck, says Staros.

Prior to the Ritz-Carlton opening, company executives launched a massive marketing and sales effort to overcome Naples' lack of name recognition. "We knocked on the doors of Fortune 500 companies and introduced this new luxury resort property to companies that already knew of the Ritz as a great business hotel," says Staros. "We marketed it as incentive travel to reward their employees and as the perfect place to bring their board meetings."

The marketing plan worked: 76,000 rooms were pre-booked in 1986. The dumb luck came along in the form of a song, a 1980s remake of Irving Berlin's Puttin' on the Ritz.

"The song came out two weeks after the purchase of the company was finalized in 1983, and it became a hit," says Staros. "You would've thought we were marketing geniuses. It made the Ritz name familiar to everybody."

But getting the word out about Naples meant taking the message overseas. With the Ritz and the Registry onboard, the managers and partners of the three other largest beachfront hotels pooled their money to create the Naples Visitors Bureau in 1989. They hired Amy Gravina as their public relations counsel and Dudley Goodlette, now a state representative, as their legal counsel. "We took trips to Europe and eventually to South America to promote this place called Naples," says Ayres. "On our trip to Buenos Aires, we upstaged-by way of attendance-the Disney people who were doing a cocktail party."

The media blitz was a far cry from the way Watkins' grandmother had promoted the family-owned Naples Beach Hotel-by attaching a banner to her car and driving up and down Tamiami Trail. "Up until then, nothing was really being done to promote Naples as a premier international destination," recalls Gravina. "The Ritz gave us the name recognition to make it a success."

The resulting attention caught many off-guard, including hoteliers and others in the industry. "We had no idea of the magnitude or the impact the Ritz and Registry would have, or the quality of people attracted to these facilities," says Goodlette.

Chicago-based developer Gary Chensoff guided the conversion of the Registry to a luxury resort in the early 1990s and developed the Naples Grande golf club for guests of the sister hotels, the Registry and the Edgewater Beach Hotel.

"There was a time when a lot of people in the industry questioned having a Ritz in Naples. They thought it would do fine in Atlanta, but Naples was a stretch," says Chensoff. "Today there's no question that the bookmarks of Pelican Bay-the Registry and the Ritz-differentiated Naples from a lot of other communities. They helped the whole marketplace."

The hotels were the catalyst for much of the region's subsequent prosperity, sparking the growth of everything from fine restaurants to luxury homes, as those visiting executives and vacationers realized they could get used to living in paradise, if only for the winter. "They buy a part-time home, and then stay six months," says Tammie Nemecek, executive director of the Economic Development Council of Collier County. "These are high-level executives, and it's been said that we have more retired and active CEOs per capita than anywhere else. That translates into the type of companies we can recruit."

As an example of just how close the resort-real estate connection is, Prestige Properties will soon open an office in the Edgewater Beach lobby. "It's not a stretch for a realtor to show homes to people who are spending $300 a night at the Ritz," says Ayres.

McIntosh says the luxury hotels led to the next logical progression: the resort-style, master-planned community, complete with golf courses, day spas and fine dining. "It starts with the luxury hotels," he says. "Their clientele is affluent and they transition from being short-term visitors to being snowbirds to being permanent residents."

Today, Naples boasts two of Florida's nine Ritz-Carltons. The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort opened in January 2002, just down the road from the beachfront hotel on Vanderbilt Beach Road, to accommodate guests' request for golf. Naples is now among a handful of two-Ritz towns, (the others are Atlanta and Washington, D.C.); and it's the only one in the world with two Ritz resorts.

Other luxury hotels have joined the mix. The Hyatt Regency Coconut Point opened in September 2001 after an exhaustive search for the right property. It offers a 19,000-square-foot day spa, including one of only eight Watsu pools in the country, plus golf, a marina, six restaurants, seven pools and sunbathing on an island getaway.

Benefits to local residents go beyond the ever-expanding dining, shopping and cultural opportunities that wealthy visitors help support. Locals, too, can often take advantage of hotel facilities and amenities. The Hyatt welcomes the public to its spa and restaurants, and locals can join the Registry Resort's Premier Club, which includes use of the resort's five pools, the recently ex­panded Sanctuary Spa, the beach, and its 15-court tennis facility, which hosts an active local tennis league. All of the Registry's four restaurants are open to the public, as well as the spa and the popular hotspot Luna Ultralounge.