Northwest Florida, the Forgotten Coast

The farther north you go in Florida, the farther south you get

WaterColor Beach Club

By Brooke Willis

I’m not sure what my favorite part of the trip is – the seafood, the slow pace of Apalachicola, the service at the WaterColor Inn, or maybe just reading a book on the beach. Every part of the trip is so easygoing and pleasant that it’s hard to tell what really stands out.

From the time my boyfriend and I land in Panama City, we are greeted warmly and enthusiastically everywhere we go. Often-overlooked northwest Florida – sometimes called the forgotten coast – has hundreds of miles of beaches, nature preserves and lazy fishing towns, brought to life by dozens of new housing and lodging developments. Major Florida landholders such as St. Joe, the paper and forestry concern that owns almost one million acres in Florida, have recently shifted Gulf-front property from commercial use to more lucrative residential developments. Northerners and southerners alike are buying and renting new homes near the ocean for retirement, snowbird escapes or summer getaways. The mix of old Florida charm and modern housing is very attractive.

The first thing I want to do is put my toes in the sand, which I do as soon as I get a tour of the 2,000-acre WindMark Beach project in the town of Port St. Joe, formerly called St. Joseph and once the heart of Alfred DuPont’s timber business. This pedestrian-friendly neighborhood includes homes and town homes, shops, services and four miles of beachfront – the same shores Spanish explorers first saw when they settled the area in 1699.

What’s striking about the WindMark homes is the characteristic Florida architecture of summer cottages: one-story, raised above the ground for airflow, wraparound screened porches, “dog trot” breezeways for cooling and ribbed tin roofs with extended eaves. The look is simple and casual, yet completely modern (though not cheap; homes range from $450,000 to $1 million). This development was created with the environment in mind: Wooden boardwalks allow visitors to safely traverse the ecosystem of the dunes.

Two miles southeast is the busy Port St. Joe Marina, where charter fishing boats come and go all day, and fisherman stack the day’s catch by the Dockside Raw Bar restaurant to lure in vacationers. Everyone at the Dockside seems to know everyone else, and visitors are treated as friends. Oysters – the region’s trademark – are offered up in every possible way, along with scallops, blue crabs and shrimp. This region has some of the world’s most productive fishing waters, and you can have your day’s catch cleaned and cooked to order as soon as you get off the boat. Having grown up on a summer diet of blue crabs and oysters at my grandparents’ farm on the Chesapeake Bay, the menu couldn’t be better.

As the sun begins to set, we drive east some 20 miles to Apalachicola, stopping at a little roadside food store/shucking house to buy some famous Tupelo honey, which is harvested only during a two-week period in the spring from swampy Tupelo tree groves. Apalachicola – or Apalach for short – is an old fishing town surrounded by state parks and marshlands, and still supports a healthy crabbing, shrimping and fishing industry. Tight zoning restrictions and marshy shores, rather than sandy beaches, have allowed the town to maintain its Old Florida character. Quaint bed and breakfasts welcome visitors to quiet streets lined with moss-draped live oaks, grand magnolias and sandy sidewalks. The home of John Gorrie, who invented a room-cooling ice machine (the precursor to air conditioning) in 1851, is open to the public, as is the 246,000-acre biosphere reserve and estuarine sanctuary (the largest in the United States), and the ragged and historically intriguing Chestnut Street Cemetery.

Coombs House InnOnce the home of cotton, lumber and sponge industries, Apalach remains the harvesting point for 90 percent of Florida’s oysters, and 10 percent of the nation’s oyster trade. Since the waters of the Apalachicola Bay are among the nation’s cleanest and most productive, the county’s annual seafood landings amount to more than $14 million, including redfish, cobia, pompano, speckled trout, Spanish and king mackerel, black drum, jack crevalle, tarpon, snapper, triple tail and amberjack, besides some of the best oysters and shrimp in the world. Visitors can experience fishing charters, sailing, canoeing, kayaking, horseback riding and airplane tours, as well as eco-tours of the nature preserves.

We stayed at the Coombs House Inn, considered the most elegant residence in Apalachicola when it was built in 1905. The Queen Anne-style home has several spacious rooms with large bathrooms and comfortable period décor. I feel terribly spoiled, as our generous hosts look after our every need. We see many picturesque Victorian homes on the side streets, as well as stately churches and community buildings from the town’s industrial heyday.

As we walk around the neatly laid-out downtown in the evening, we happen upon Tamara’s Café Floridita just before closing, and order crab cakes and fried oysters with plenty of jalepeño sauce. After dinner, we walk down by the fishing wharf where the Apalachicola River meets the bay, and stop in at some of the dockside restaurants and pubs, having drinks on a balcony overlooking the river. In the morning, we wander around the small commercial district, fueled by exotic coffee drinks and desserts at Café con Leche. Everyone here sells Tupelo honey, but it’s a little pricier than what we bought at the highway shuck shack. The shopkeepers are quite gracious in relaying the history of the area and pointing us to new adventures.

Midday, we say farewell to this fisherman’s Mayberry and head to nearby St. George Island, a narrow 28-mile-long barrier island with some of the most pristine beaches in the state. We briefly stop in Eastpoint, an authentic, no-nonsense fishing town, before driving south across the bridge and causeway to St. George. The east end of the island is a state park, providing nine miles of unspoiled, undeveloped beaches, with terrific hiking trails, boardwalks and relatively private sun worshipping. Birding is especially good here, with several species of hawks, falcons and occasionally bald eagles making stops on their migration paths, and turtles nest along the beach. If we had more time, we would rent a little cottage and spend more time soaking up this serenely beautiful stretch of the Gulf Coast. As it is, we only have a few hours, so we play with sand crabs, gulls and pipers, then have cocktails, a few raw oysters and a delicious Bay scallop po’ boy at the Blue Parrot tiki bar, watching the beach boys bring their WaveRunners in for the evening.

We’re reluctant to leave St. George Island, but a luxurious stay at the WaterColor Inn awaits, back up the coast in an area known as the Beaches of South Walton. WaterColor is a 60-room boutique hotel designed by prominent architect David Rockwell and designated “Florida’s best hotel” by Travel + Leisure magazine. Both the hotel and its Fish Out of Water restaurant have achieved AAA’s four-diamond ranking.

As we arrive, we are welcomed with a choice of sno-cone or cold lemon-water and a staff genuinely eager to assist. Our room is attractive, cozy and offers a breathtaking view of the water – you can even see the beach from the bathroom sink. Toiletries, doortags and other amenities in the room bear apropos sayings such as “Butter melts faster in the south” (Roy Blount, Jr). Our evening meal at Fish Out of Water is splendid, and when we return to our room, there is a bag of freshly baked cookies on the bed, with a handwritten thank-you note, and a card with tomorrow’s weather forecast.

The inn is only one part of the sprawling WaterColor resort and residential neighborhood, a project that includes hundreds of custom-built homes, stores, restaurants, a boathouse and lake, tennis center, fitness center, gardens, a golf course, several pools and bicycles everywhere (just take one when you need it, and leave it wherever you go). The number of ways we could pass the time amazes us, and kayaking turns out to be just the ticket for our afternoon exercise.

Nearly half the 500-acre property is devoted to open green space and preservation areas, and the inn adheres to Florida’s Green Lodging Program. Later, we score a top-notch dinner at Criolla’s in Grayton Beach, then have a few beers at the friendly 3-Thirty-1 (its famous parent, the Red Bar, was just closing for the night). Never the types to retire early, we head back to WaterColor, park the car and explore the Seaside neighborhood to the east. We say goodbye to the beach from the balcony of Bud & Alley’s, a Seaside institution with great energy, even at closing time on a weeknight.

The quiet splendor of the Forgotten Coast will remain a fond memory until we return to explore other snow-white beaches and fishing towns. Thoughts of the best seafood and the warmest welcomes in the south make us eager to save up for another trip – and to bring a few friends, because they just won’t understand how special it is until they experience it.

Gardens at WaterColor ResortFor more information:

Port St. Joe, Gulf County
800-482-GULF
www.visitgulf.com

WindMark Beach
850-229-8979
www.joe.com/web/townsandhomes/windmarkbeach

Port St. Joe Marina
850-227-9393
www.psjmarina.com

Apalachicola Bay Chamber of Commerce
850-653-9419
www.apalachicolabay.org

Coombs House Inn
888-244-8320
www.coombshouseinn.com

WaterColor Inn
850-535-5000
www.watercolorinn.com

Grayton Beach
www.graytonbeach.com

Beaches of South Walton
www.beachesofsouthwalton.com

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