On Gasparilla Island, enjoy world-class fishing and beautiful beaches

The Gasparilla Inn & Club, whose pool area is shown here, is known for its white sand beaches and world-class tarpon fishing. BRANTLEY PHOTOGRAPHY | Gasparilla Inn and Club.

Appeared Originally in the Tampa Bay Times.

Driving over the Boca Grande Bridge brings back 30 years of memories vacationing on Gasparilla Island with my children, relatives and family friends. It still has the same homes, the same shops, the same restaurants and the same ambiance from those bygone days. Rather than a been-there, done-that vacation, it’s a so-glad-to-be-back respite.

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Town and Country Magazine Hosts Tour of Boca Grande’s Newly Renovated Gasparilla Inn

gasparilla inn

Photography by Brantley Photography

Since its 1913 remodel, the Gasparilla Inn & Club has been a power hub in the sleepy village of Boca Grande, located on a barrier island between Naples and Sarasota. Titans of industry like J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford vacationed there, as did Hollywood elite like Katherine Hepburn. But after a century of vacationers, the shabby-chic transomed rooms (sans air conditioning), peanut butter and bacon canapes at cocktail hour, and a strict, clubby dress code, were in need of a refresh. The designers to call? Interior design duo Palm Beach native Mimi Maddock McMakin, Cece Bowman and Mackenzie Hodgson of Kemble Interiors. A team who intrinsically understood which Lovey and Thurston Howell-esque touches should stay, and which were ready to enter a new era.

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