Families and friends across generations have returned again and again to see something that simply isn’t accessible anyplace else in Naples. While everyone says this, there is just something interestingly exceptional about this lodging from the very beginning and, true enough, the individuals who have encountered this little piece of heaven agree. Maybe it’s the ambiance, maybe it’s the food or the beds, maybe it’s the service or maybe a combination of all three, one thing is sure; there is recently no other place like The Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club.
It seems like it has not been long before The Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club opened its ways to traveling families who were searching for the ideal beachfront inn in Florida. But at long last, the hotel is now seventy years in business. So many wonderful southwest Florida memories that were made up of reunions, fancy dinners, golf matches, cocktails, family outings, successful business meetings, cheerful and tearful weddings, romantic escapades, spa sessions concerts and so much more. And there will surely be more to come in the generations to follow.
The first hotel was first developed in the 1880’s and named The Naples Hotel. It was made in two sections, east of the Naples angling wharf, and 1 and 1/2 miles south of what would, in the long run, turn into the site of The Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club.
In 1930, Allen Joslin, nephew of the founder of the Jergens hand lotion company, assembled the initial 18-opening fairway in the Naples range. Furthermore, he obtained the beachfront property neighboring the course where he assembled The Beach Club, the principal working of what later turned into The Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club. Before the development of Joslin’s fairway, the main golf played in Naples was at a 9-gap city course which served as the airplane terminal. Golfers needed to utilize Third Street and Fifth Avenue through downtown Naples as fairways.
In late 1946, Henry B. Watkins Sr., a 56-year-old resigned toy manufacturer from Ohio, purchased The Naples Hotel, setting out on an exceptionally effective second resurrection. A couple of years after this, he acquired The Beach Club and the 18-gap green from Joslin, who had shut both of the properties in 1939, making another shoreline resort between the fairway and the Gulf of Mexico: The Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club. The delight that he got from watching his fulfilled resort visitors, notwithstanding his unadulterated love of golf, contributed greatly to his choice to buy the properties. The Naples Hotel stayed somewhat profitable for quite a while until the establishment that it was shut down in the 1970’s; although this was not the end for this historic hotel.
Throughout the years, superstars have encountered the appeal of The Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club. Inventor Thomas Edison appreciated Sunday suppers at the resort amid his stays at his adjacent winter home in Fort Myers, Fla. In 1989, after the demise of his dad Henry B. Watkins Jr., Michael Watkins progressed toward becoming President of the organization, with sibling Henry Watkins III as Executive Vice President. Since that time, there have been persistent enhancements and improvements to guarantee that everybody going to The Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club would have an experience they’d always remember, regardless of what the reason their visit was for.
