August 2009

I’ve spent two decades trolling the Caribbean for summer deals, and it’s a little-known fact that before the proliferation of the Internet, the fancy-schmancy resorts in the islands offered our European brothers and sisters mega-deals (as in two weeks for the price of one). So, I happily gave up my childhood and adolescent love of the Gulf beaches and traveled from St. Barths to Haiti (more on that in my August column—attendants are a luxury ). Now, 20 (ah-hem) or so years later, I found myself with my New York teen wondering what to do for the three weeks before her school term commenced while all her buddies were still away at camps.

My godmother, Joie, generously offered to give us her house (with guest house) in Watersound amongst the “Emerald Coast” of Florida’s panhandle. Long gone are the astro-turf carpeted, spray-on ceiling, rank-with-mildewed-air-conditioning condos of my youth. This stretch of beaches—which I had all but forgotten—reaches from Destin to Panama City in an almost unbroken 50 miles of luxury, from Seaside (the pioneer in luxury coastal living) with its quaint restaurants and groceries, to the ultra-glam Alys Beach with homes rumored to belong to Paris Hilton and other A-List celebs. Sitting proudly amidst the sugary white sand and glass-green water, our house was the envy of all my Hamptons buddies as I snapped away at Frank Fleming sculptures, art-encased collages and shadowy, haunting beach scenes and e-mailed them to those sad enough to be trapped in Sag Harbor.

The homes along this stretch of Florida are magnificent! The beaches are not the thronged, sweaty, overlapping-beach-toweled landmasses of my youth. Here everyone has space, yet the friendliness remains. A neighbor from Miami popped over to sit under our umbrella, and when I told her I had been e-mailing pictures to friends, she snatched my camera and said, “Stop it now—I live in Miami and I come here to escape! This is a secret—this is for Southerners!”