Northern Exposure

Kip O’Neill fell in love at first sight.

Seventeen years ago, she told her soon-to-be-husband, the late Leo O’Neill, that before she would agree to marriage, they had to buy a house on Longboat Key. When she saw her now home on Poinsettia Street in the north end Longbeach Village, she knew it was the one.

At the time, the south end of the island was normally in the spotlight. It was home to the wave of construction that began two-and-a-half decades earlier with the arrival of Arvida. That period resulted in high-rise condominiums, planned communities, such as Bay Isles and Country Club Shores, and the Longboat Key Club and Resort.

“When I saw the Village, I thought, ‘This is it,’” O’Neill said.

She liked the neighborhood atmosphere, the architecture and the diversity of residents.

“It’s a very interesting neighborhood with interesting people from all walks of life,” O’Neill said.

Local Realtors say that although many buyers start their search for property at the south end of the island — due to the prominence Arvida brought to the south end, along with its proximity to St. Armands Circle and downtown Sarasota — many end up loving north-end life.

The north end is quiet, with mostly single-family homes and no high-rise condominiums.

“It’s kind of kept that relaxed feeling that it had in the early days,” said Bobbie Banan, sales associate with Michael Saunders & Co. and a north-end, Sleepy Lagoon resident.

The Manatee County side of the Key is also home to some of the island’s best-known amenities. The majority of the Key’s restaurants — Bayou Tavern, Blue Dolphin Café, Ciao, Italia!, Euphemia Haye, Harry’s Continental Kitchens, Lazy Lobster Longboat Key, Café Don Giovanni, Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant & Pub and Moore’s Stone Crab Restaurant and Marina — are all located on the northern side of the island.

So are the Longboat Key Center for the Arts, a Division of Ringling College of Art and Design, Joan M. Durante Park and two of the island’s three shopping centers. The north end is also home to a variety of rental units, including the Longboat Key Hilton Beachfront Resort and Casa del Mar, and six of the Key’s 11 public beach accesses.

For the record, it isn’t far from the amenities that often attract south-Key residents. Barbara Ackerman, sales associate with Coldwell Banker Longboat Key, has timed the drive from the northern-most tip of

Longboat Key to mid-Key on a busy day and found that it doesn’t take more than 10 minutes.

“The north end of the Key has the most amount of restaurants, it’s not congested and it has very easy public-beach access,” said Ackerman.

Early development
For much of the island’s history, the north end was the hub of activity, and the south end was largely undeveloped. The entire Key was once part of Manatee County (see sidebar below).

The island’s first settler, Thomas Mann, moved his family to a thatch hut he built in 1888 on the north end of the Key. According to Lora Colvin Whitney’s “Hail This Feisty Village!,” which details Village life from 1885 to 1955, a 1913 survey showed 16 verifiable houses in what is now the Village, along with a hotel, dock and bathhouse. Around the same time, a farming community of approximately 25 families sprouted up on the south end of the Key in what is now Corey’s Landing. But in October 1921, a hurricane washed away much of that community. However, many homes in the Village were block houses and were sturdy enough to survive the storm. And over the next decades, that community, along with other surrounding north-end communities, continued to thrive.

Gordon and Lora Whitney came in 1935 to the north end from Chicago and built a resort community they called Whitney Beach. By 1937, the Village neighborhood was home to a schoolhouse, which operated until 1943. Other homes, vacation cottages, restaurants, hotels and shops were built on the north end. Key institutions such as the Longboat Key Chamber of Commerce and the Arts Center formed on the north end in the 1950s. When residents voted to form the town of Longboat Key in 1955, they did so at a north-end
firehouse that has since been demolished.

And while the south end was home to famed properties such as The Colony Beach & Tennis Resort and Far Horizons, the north part of the island was the hub of activity. But that would soon change. By 1967, Arvida had moved its first office onto the south end of the Key. It developed the 461-unit Seaplace in 1973, followed by Bay Isles and the Bayou — and these developments were just the beginning of the south end’s transformation.

“The whole area that was developed by Arvida as a planned development really created a focus on Longboat Key, because it was unique,” Ackerman said. “It really put Longboat Key on the map as a destination.”

As a result, Longboat Key is often associated with Sarasota. Occasionally, according to Realtors, buyers are surprised to find that part of the island lies in Manatee County.

“We consider Sarasota to be the hub of our activity,” Banan said. “But people come to the north end, and they love it. They find that 12 miles out here is not a long drive.”

Home stretch
The fact that the north and south ends of Longboat Key developed differently doesn’t make a difference to many people. According to Banan, first and foremost buyers want to live on Longboat Key. When she asks them about their preferences, she can determine whether she thinks they will prefer a home on the north or south end.

Many south-end communities are considered world-class developments and also offer active social scenes and proximity to amenities. North-Key residents often prefer something quieter and more private. Some prefer something less formal than residents of the south end, in which most communities are deed-restricted. By contrast, just a few north-Key communities, such as Emerald Harbor, are deed-restricted. Residents also say that the north end is more likely to be home to families.

Rusty Chinnis, a Village resident of more than 30 years, said that he likes the neighborhood feel of the area and the fact that the community holds neighborhood association meetings and cleanups.

“It’s the place I enjoy being the most and probably always will,” he said.

Perhaps what longtime north-end residents like most about their neighborhoods is this: Even for those who have lived there for decades, it’s still essentially the same place they moved to long ago.

“It was just quiet and quaint,” said Ray Arpke, owner of Euphemia Haye, who moved in 1974 to the Village with his wife, D’Arcy. “Now, it’s pretty much the same.”

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected]

Click here to view to view a summary of Sarasota MLS listings for Longboat Key.

Two sides to the story
Nearly a century ago, Sarasota County didn’t exist, and the entire island was a part of Manatee County. Then, in 1921, the Florida Constitution was amended to form Sarasota County out of Manatee County. The county was split through an agreement that extended Manatee County from what is now Myakka City west to the north end of Longboat Key. As a result, Longboat Key was split between Sarasota and Manatee counties. Today, Longboat Key is one of just three municipalities in Florida divided between two counties. (The other two are the city of Fanning Springs, which is split between Gilchrist and Levy counties, and the town of Marineland, divided between Flagler and St. Johns counties.)