Ah, Amenities!

From world-class golf destinations, full-service spas with trendy treatments, and dining that rivals that offered by the area's most revered restaurants, home for some Southwest Floridians means never having to venture far past the front gate. Concierge service allows someone else to make your travel plans, stock your refrigerator, ready your house for your return, walk your dog, maybe even land tickets to those A-list events that sold out months ago. Welcome to Easy Street.

Golf, of Course

The way Margaret Miller sees it, people come to Florida for three reasons-golf, boating and the beach-and their home should offer all of those. . The president of Miromar Development Corp., Miller has patterned her Miromar Lakes Beach & Golf Club in Estero after the fine resorts she's visited around the world. "This is a resort lifestyle community," she says. "We offer the best of what people want on holiday. This is a whole style of living."

With the number of golf courses rising almost monthly in Southwest Florida, and with membership fees that can run upward of $150,000, communities are finding it important to stay on top of their game. New courses must offer an experience unduplicated elsewhere, says David Fry, senior vice president of amenities for WCI. "Before we sat down with Greg Norman's people for the course at Tiburón, we scripted out what we were looking for and how we were going to create a golf experience that's different," he says. "We built a golf course with no rough, which is unique to the market. We used coquina sand, which has a nice reddish-orange look, and had it trucked in from Daytona Beach. It's a little different from any other course in Southwest Florida, and that's allowed us to set ourselves apart."

Boasting a famous name like Norman or Jack Nicklaus instantly increases the cachet of a community's golf course. Golf-course architects like Bob Cupp, Tom Fazio, P.B. Dye and Arthur Hills have developed a following, and their names help drive memberships and sell homes.

Nicklaus and son are designing their second course at The Estates at TwinEagles in Naples. Like their first in the community, it will be built under Audubon Signature Sanctuary guidelines, ensuring that the course is not only challenging but also nature friendly. The first Nicklaus -designed golf course, The Talon, is one of the few local ones that presents walking as an option (it also hosts a national Senior PGA tour event).

Grey Oaks Country Club and The Estuary offer 54 holes of golf and two clubhouses right in the heart of Naples. "We're the only private community in Naples able to say that," says Connie Dickinson, director of sales and marketing.

Sandra Hesse, a partner and general manager of Quail West Golf & Country Club in Naples, says the community's two Hills-designed golf courses and its membership opportunities "are absolutely crucial to sales. Ninety-five percent of our buyers would never buy a home here without playing the golf course, being introduced to some members, and learning about the services we offer at our clubhouse."

Dining Delights

While golf is generally the main attraction, dining that rivals that offered by the area's finest restaurants ranks highly. Members of The Club at Mediterra in Naples enjoy the epicurean masterpieces of Registry Resort alumnus Wilhelm Gahabka under the leadership of food-and-beverage director Friedrich Eder, an alumnus of several Ritz-Carltons, including the Naples resort.

Gahabka, a Florida Trend Golden Spoon recipient, has been featured on CNN's "On the Menu" and the Discovery Channel's "Great Chefs of the South." Eder, fluent in four languages, is also a cigar aficionado and the creator of the Mediterra Cigar-a hand-rolled Cuban available only to members.

"Mediterra was positioned to be the most high-end community The Bonita Bay Group has ever done," says Susan Watts, a company vice president as well as general manager for both Mediterra and The Estates at TwinEagles. "The Club at Mediterra and its amenities are important because people are buying the lifestyle. We want every amenity, every membership opportunity to exceed our members' expectations. Our club facilities and social life are extremely important to them."

Hired before the walls were even standing at The Club at Mediterra, Eder and Gahabka were given total creative freedom. The result, says Eder, is a top-notch dining and club experience. "If a member wants something, we get it," he says.

Eder and Gahabka have created special menus on request and have hosted an unprecedented six Chaine des Rotisseurs dinners at The Club at Mediterra. Gahabka has served as a personal chef at members' homes and plans to introduce a chef's table. He has started an herb garden, created a signature lemon-grass lemonade, and raised spinning and pulling sugar to an art. In the summer he launched ice carving. "You always have to come up with new things," he says.

Of course, providing high-caliber service requires hiring employees who can execute the vision, like Mediterra's Gahabka and Eder. When the Gulf Bay Group of Companies decided to expand its dining and membership options at Fiddler's Creek, a huge master-planned community between Naples and Marco Island, it looked to another Ritz protégé, Joe Freni, for help. As the former regional vice president of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and general manager of The Ritz-Carlton, Naples, Freni brought an intimate understanding of world-class service to the community. As at Miromar Lakes, he emphasized a resort lifestyle-a task made easy by the signature spa and lagoon pool at Fiddler's Creek.

"We created amenities that make you feel as if you're in a resort," says Freni, who as president of Gulf Bay Hotel Company and Gulf Bay Hospitality oversees the company's amenities program. "We brought in tremendously talented chefs from five-diamond restaurants in Washington and New York to put together some extremely creative and dynamic menu offerings. Our wine lists are as sophisticated and as complete as any fine restaurant, and our servers have been trained in some of the finest restaurants. This elevates the whole experience at Fiddler's Creek."

HDG Communities didn't have to search far for its director of spa services at The Strand in Naples. Kelly Wood, who moonlighted on weekends at Olde Cypress-another HDG community-quit her day job at the year-old Ritz-Carlton spa to take on the head post at Spa at The Strand.

A massage therapist and aesthetician followed, says Renee Tolson, one of HDG's principals. "We were able to bring the best people to the spa," she says. "A spa is an amenity that most other communities don't offer, and we've created a full-service menu for mind, body and soul for our members. Also, our spa is highly staffed so you can have two pedicurists working on you at once if you want."

At the European-style spa at Miromar Lakes' Beach Club, Miller also plans to hire the best. She's currently interviewing potential candidates from New York. Quail West and the spa at Fiddler's Creek put a similar emphasis on quality.

Beach within Reach

Besides golf, water serves as a popular theme in Southwest Florida communities. Fiddler's Creek offers limited memberships at the Tarpon Club Marina on Marco Island. Along the Caloosahatchee River, Cape Harbour in Cape Coral and Gulf Harbour in Fort Myers offer prime deepwater lots and community marinas.

Communities located miles away from the Gulf have brought the beach to their members with private clubs on the Gulf. Mediterra's members-only Beach Club, set to open early next year on Bonita Beach, will offer casual food and beverage service, a bar (Eder and Gahabka are already working on a signature cocktail), sun decks and swimming pool. The building is elevated to ensure privacy and positioned to enjoy sunsets. The Estates at TwinEagles, some seven miles east of Interstate 75 and at least 10 miles from the Gulf, recently formed a partnership with the ultra-exclusive Pelican Isle Yacht Club that offers TwinEagles' residents membership.

At Miromar Lakes, Miller chose a site with water-700 acres of turquoise, freshwater lakes that will beckon boaters, water-skiers and anglers, and serve as the backdrop for the community's Beach Club. The club will include two miles of beach, a 10,000-square-foot negative-edge swimming pool and a building that will eventually offer the spa, formal dining, a wine room and home theater, in addition to a casual grill and fitness center that opens in the first phase. There's no membership fee and "residents can literally walk from their homes to the beach," says executive vice present/general manager Jerry Schmoyer.

"It's a private beach," adds Miller, "You can't get that anywhere else in Southwest Florida."

Many communities offer club-level service with no extra membership costs: Simply buy a house at Pelican Landing in Bonita Springs, and you automatically enjoy dining privileges at the award-winning Bay Club, a coral-tinged, three-story oasis surrounded by the highly sought-after nothingness of mangrove preserve and back bay waters. Of course, Pelican Landing residents have the option of membership in the community's golf course, which gives them access to another clubhouse and a whole list of other amenities.

The string of high-rise condominiums WCI is building along the Gulf in Naples have entire floors devoted to amenities, encompass 40,000 square feet in some buildings and offer everything from dining, private movie theaters, billiards, fitness clubs, spa services and private poolside cabanas. It's been said that the entertainment level rivals that of a nightclub; residents can take in a movie, lounge over a cocktail or enjoy a game of pool. The theater at Montenero, booked every day in season, already has been reserved for the Super Bowl.

As their populations grow, many communities are beginning to implement the next level of club offerings-concierge services. "This was something that was lacking when we first came up with the concept for Miromar Lakes a few years ago," says Schmoyer. "This is really the key to creating the resort lifestyle, which truly has a place in our business."

The Bonita Bay Group's Custom Services program at Mediterra and TwinEagles includes pool cleaning service, lawn mowing, house cleaning, babysitting and dog walking for a small monthly fee. Grey Oaks' residential concierge program takes care of homes while owners are away, making sure that appliances and alarm systems are functioning and even starting vehicles to keep them in good working order.

Membership opportunities aren't just limited to adults. Grey Oaks conducts a summer camp for its school-age members, which is jam-packed with swimming, golf and tennis lessons, says Dickinson.

Getting In

Many communities offer memberships to non-residents. HDG, for instance, has created a dining and spa program that for one annual fee allows non-residents to sample the award-winning haute cuisine at any of the company's three gated communities, plus enjoy its spa services.

Anyone who wants to plunk down the membership fee is more than welcome to become a member at most of the area's community golf courses. Fiddler's Creek offers non-resident memberships for its golf course and the Club & Spa at Fiddler's Creek. TwinEagles also has non-resident golf memberships available.

The luxurious extras are only likely to increase as communities in Southwest Florida explore ways to stay ahead of the competition. "As Fiddler's Creek continues to grow, our amenities and services are going to be as important as the quality of the homes and the surroundings," says Freni. "These are important components buyers are looking for. They want a high-class, world-resort experience."

"We're really at a point where we've done it all," says Fry, "so now we're trying to put much more emphasis on activities, soft amenities. Making sure residents' needs are met is our company-wide charter."

The High Life

It wasn't that Ken Evans totally opposed condominiums. He and his wife Reggie spent extended vacations enjoying the sand and surf at their Naples condo on the Gulf of Mexico. But home-first in Boston, then upstate New York-was always a place with four walls, a roof and a floor they didn't share with neighbors. When Ken, a self-employed business consultant, retired in 1996, he traded in the vacation condo for a home in Pelican Marsh, complete with lawn, landscaping and a pool with waterfall.

But after three years on solid ground, Ken and Reggie realized they missed the condo's amenities and location, especially their walks down the two-mile cement path between the condos and mangroves. "There's water on both sides and you see native birds and alligators," he explains. "There was something different to see every day."

Then the Evanses learned about Montenero, WCI's last high-rise in Pelican Bay. Right where they wanted to be, it promised many amenities, including a billiards room, private poolside cabanas, fitness center and a movie theater. Now president of the condo association, Ken says they're enjoying every aspect of condo life, from the friendships with other residents, who come from all over the world, to that movie theater, where they frequently invite friends to enjoy some hors d'oeuvres, wine and a show.

"Our kids loved the house and thought we were crazy to leave, but when they came to visit, they saw the theater and were convinced we made the right move," Ken says.

Lakes and Links

Allen Finatri, owner of Lee Collier Realty Group and the Real Estate Library, has sold or listed homes from Marco Island to Fort Myers.

So when it came time for Finatri to decide where to live, he did what any good broker would do-he studied location and amenities, and tried to determine future potential value. He zeroed in on Estero-which has the fastest growing property values in Southwest Florida and more than 700 acres of freshwater lakes for boating, water skiing and fishing.

Then he chose Miromar Lakes Beach & Golf Club, an 1,800-acre community on Ben Hill Griffin Drive that's close to shopping, the airport and Florida Gulf Coast Community. "I'm more of a boater than a golfer because for me, it's easier to drive a boat than a golf ball," he says. "Miromar has a 200-boat marina, and my grandchildren can visit and water ski and fish on the lakes here, which are just unparalleled."