by starfish on February 28, 2009
The Wall Street Journals LAURA LANDRO wrote a great piece on Vero Beach Florida.
Singer Gloria Estefan made her first foray into Florida hotels in 1992, when she bought the landmark Cardozo on sizzling South Beach’s Ocean Drive. She’s opened her latest resort on an Ocean Drive as well — in an unlikely outpost about 150 miles north: sleepy Vero Beach, with little sizzle but plenty of old-style Florida charm.
Costa d’Este Beach Resort
Far from the bustle of overbuilt South Florida, Vero Beach lies on a stretch of Atlantic turf aptly dubbed the Treasure Coast, in a transitional climate zone where oak trees and pine forests thrive alongside the palms and colorful tropical flora of balmier points south. Indian River Lagoon divides the city into sections on the mainland and a barrier island. It all makes for spectacular fishing, kayaking, bird-watching and boating, as well as miles of white sand beaches where you can walk for a long time and encounter no one.
But one can also dive into a Mickey Mouse-shaped pool and have pancakes with Goofy and friends at a Victorian-style Disney time-share resort a few miles out of town. (It’s on a real beach, as opposed to the ersatz ones at the Orlando flagship.) Closer to town, Ms. Estefan’s new Costa d’Este Beach Resort, with its whitewashed façade and elegant cascading entry fountain, sits next door to the quirky, historic Driftwood Inn, a time-share resort known for its weathered timbers and antique artifacts, some salvaged from old mansions and hotels. Elsewhere on the island, the Vero Beach Hotel features West Indian décor in a more low-key upscale hotel-condo managed by Kimpton Hotels.
Click here to read the rest of the article…
by starfish on July 16, 2008
The Orlando Sentinel has a cool article on Vero Beach, a laid-back city by the sea. Here’s an excerpt:
The teens who skateboard along Ocean Drive still call this onetime citrus and ranching town “Zero Beach.” But don’t tell that to pop star Gloria Estefan.
Longtime owners of an Art Deco hotel on Miami Beach’s better-known Ocean Drive, Estefan and her husband, Emilio, just opened a “personal luxury resort,” Costa d’Este. It’s down the street from the new four-diamond Vero Beach Hotel & Club.
And don’t tell best-selling author Carl Hiaasen. He moved to this laid-back town of 18,000 three years ago for the Old Florida charm whose demise he mourns in his novels.
And certainly don’t tell Kathy Gelb and her husband, George. Like a lot of retirees, they scouted both Florida coasts before deciding on the state’s new “it” destination just 100 miles southeast of Orlando.
What made Vero Beach stand out is what it doesn’t have: traffic jams and high-rises that blot out the sun.
“That’s really what brought us here,” said Gelb, who had lived in Coral Gables for 25 years. “They have good zoning. They know how not to ruin a coastline. They wrote the book on it.”
Indeed, they did — more than 30 years ago. When two 13-story towers called The Village Spires opened up in the early 1970s, they sold like mad. But Mayor Thomas White remembers that city fathers looked at each other in dismay and said, “Ahh, we don’t want this in Vero Beach.”
The residents still don’t. They’ve imposed a three-story height restriction on houses — five stories for commercial property — and require variances be approved by public referendum.
Click here for the full article
by starfish on June 30, 2008
91.4
No, we’re not talking about the temperature, though that’s probably it! Actually, what we’re referring to is the list to sell ratio for May of 2008 in Vero Beach. Listings sold for an average of 91.4% of the asking price. Our buyers need to understand that the majority of homes are priced correctly. Prices have rolled back dramatically from the top of the market. Interest rates are low, and educated buyers are making great deals on Vero Beach Real Estate.
Click here for recent sales in Vero Beach.
