Vero Beach: 'Florida like it used to be'
Vero Beach: 'Florida like it used to be'
BY PHIL LONG plong@MiamiHerald.com
When music icon Gloria Estefan purchased and remodeled her first hotel outside Miami-Dade County, she bypassed trendy haunts and the forever-regal Palm Beach in favor of quieter, less well-known Vero Beach. Her 94-room Costa D' Este Beach Resort is slated to open by early summer.
Estefan isn't alone. The stylish Caribbean Court Boutique Hotel opened last summer, complete with luxury amenities, an award-winning chef and the popular Havana Nights piano bar.
And the stately, West Indian-flavored Vero Beach Hotel and Club opened earlier this year late last year; the 83-room oceanfront resort recently was awarded a four-diamond rating from AAA.
Though Vero boasts beautiful homes, mansion developments and chic country clubs, ''from a hotel standpoint, there wasn't anything that was really comparable to the level of taste and sophistication that the rest of Vero enjoys,'' said Peter Serena, Vero Beach Hotel's general manager.
UPSCALE UPGRADES
The days of ''Zero Beach,'' as the town was dubbed during more staid times, a flurry of building hit Vero in the aftermath of two serious hurricanes in 2004. Upgrades include recent expansions to the Riverside Theatre, which hosts performances and speakers like businessman Steve Forbes and comedian Paula Poundstone, and Vero Beach Museum of Art, currently hosting an exhibition of portraits by John Singer Sargent, Alex Katz and other American artists.
Yet this seaside town is still a cozy village where hotels are about the only towers allowed. People come not because it's anything like the rest of Florida, but because it isn't.
Vero ''is like Florida used to be'' said recent visitor Dawn Hirsch of West Palm Beach.
Meticulously tended flower beds edge Ocean Drive, where upscale shops sit just steps from the beach. Live oaks shelter homes and businesses fronted by long grassy carpets. The town has a staunch, timeless feel about it -- much as it must have when Waldo Sexton built his famously funky Driftwood Resort here in 1935.
BEACHFRONT DINING
The Driftwood's beachfront restaurant, Waldo's, still packs in the locals and tourists alike, as does the long-popular Ocean Grille that overhangs the beach. The barrier island's western edge, on the Indian River, is dotted with breezy seafood eateries. West across the bridge sits the smartly restored downtown, less glamorous than the eastern shore but home to good restaurants and shops.
The area's quiet money quotient -- Wilmington Trust, Northern Trust, AG Edwards, Edward Jones and Mellon Wealth Management all have offices here -- spills into community amenities that serve tourists, too. Along with the Art Museum and theater are nature attractions like the Environmental Learning Center, McKee Botanical Gardens and Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge -- the first in the nation.
And then there are the people.
''You go up there and people are just nice, they are pleasant,'' Maria Fioravante, who lives with her family in Coral Gables and has a home north of Vero Beach.
Says Costa D'Este general manager Andrew Zinni, ``When you're coming up from Miami for the weekend, you are coming to experience the whole Vero lifestyle.''
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