By Deborah Frank
See why everyone’s flocking to the Naples Beach Club, a Four Seasons Resort—and what to pack for your getaway.
For decades, Naples Beach Club was less a hotel than a memory bank for its guests: first swims in the Gulf, sunset martinis at HB’s, weddings that folded into long, amber evenings. Now, reborn as Naples Beach Club, A Four Seasons Resort, the 80-year-old address enters a new era that feels less like reinvention and more like refinement.
Arrange to experience the idyllic Naples Bay on the hotel’s 350 Crossover Bowrider.
This is Four Seasons’ first Gulf Coast property, and the brand understands the assignment. Interiors by Champalimaud Design are light-filled and quietly sensual: white millwork, palm-leaf plaster murals, bleached pecky cypress ceilings, all in a palette drawn from sand and sun rather than spectacle. Architecture by Hart Howerton frames the coastline with restraint. Rooms open wide to the elements; sliding doors disappear, terraces stretch generously, and beds face the water as if paying homage. Yes, there are flamingo-pink minibars and Byredo’s Sundazed amenities, but also the subtler luxuries that loyalists are sure to notice, such as intuitive lighting, perfectly placed outlets (even outdoors), and the sense that someone has already thought three steps ahead on your behalf.
Catch a ride on one of the resort’s Mokes or opt for an e-bike to take a ride into Old Naples.
For families looking for a summer escape, or maybe even a mini staycay to fill a gap week in the summer camp jigsaw puzzle, the resort offers the complimentary FIN’s Kids Club, with programming and activities to rival any day camp. Think yoga for the youth, ocean-inspired arts and crafts, scavenger hunts and shoreline discoveries, racquet sports, and plenty of team-building play and collaboration. The club’s permanent home is set to open this summer, just across the way from the hotel adjacent to The Sanctuary Spa and Naples Trading Company cafe. There’s also a dedicated Teen Centre, with a lounge-like environment, and coming soon, The Picture House movie theater.
In the fall, The Wager sports pub will bring another element of fun to the resort, but in the meantime, it is hosting pop-up events, such as watch parties for the World Cup, Wimbledon, and US Open. A four-lane bowling alley will also make its debut this fall—the first of its kind for the Four Seasons.
Naples’s westward-facing sunsets cannot be beat.
And then there is the beach. The Gulf here is startlingly clear, calm, almost Caribbean in hue. Service arrives on elegant trays; mango ice appears just as the sun climbs; fruit skewers and iced chocolate espresso drinks punctuate the afternoon. After walking miles along the shoreline and taking a swim to reset the nervous system, sink into your chaise lounge and indulge in a perfect Paloma.
Classic Old Florida style at the hotel’s signature restaurant, The Merchant Room
Culinary ambitions are equally deliberate. The Merchant Room, the oceanfront signature restaurant, is helmed by two-time James Beard Award winner Gavin Kaysen in his first Florida venture, while beloved institutions HB’s on the Gulf and Sunset Bar return with polish but without pretense. (Zoning makes Sunset Bar the only true toes-in-the-sand watering hole for miles, and it wears that distinction lightly.)
Wellness anchors the experience: a 30,000-square-foot The Sanctuary Spa with coed vitality pools, cold plunge, and aquathermal circuit; self-guided reformers in the expansive gym; a racquet club; and, soon, a Tom Fazio–designed course threading the coastal terrain.
Naples has always attracted wealth. What it hasn’t always had is this level of design fluency and global luster. With this opening, the Gulf Coast doesn’t clamor for attention, it simply glows, confident in its beauty, finally matched by a hotel that understands its soul.
What to pack:
The Gulf Coast is calling. Here’s what to pack for the whole fam.
All images courtesy of Four Seasons
