Naples: Mansions and Mobile Homes

by Mike Miller
(Naples, Florida)

Naples, Florida - also known as Naples On The Gulf - is one of the richest towns in America. The mansions of Port Royale are home or second home to many of the leading industrialists and celebrities in America. Private jets landing in Naples are as common as the pelicans that glide over the beautiful white sand beaches. There are two Ritz Carlton hotels in town, one for golfers and the other for beach people. At last count, there were 82 gated golf course communities in Collier County.

Quaint little old wooden houses in Olde Naples, the downtown area, sell for one million dollars and up. That same little house in Melbourne or Gainesville might cost less than one hundred thousand dollars, but it wouldn't be in Naples. That same little house in my home town of Menominee, Michigan, might be fifty thousand, but it wouldn't be in Florida. The mansions of Port Royale, only several blocks south of Olde Naples, sell for many millions of dollars.

I used to have two homes in Naples. My primary home was a condo in downtown Naples. If I got tired of swimming in my pool or relaxing stiff muscles in my jacuzzi, there were many other things to do. I could walk to the beach in 10 minutes, to Starbucks in 5 minutes, to Tin City and other restaurant locations on Fifth Avenue, Third Street and Bayfront in 5 minutes. If my car ever got repossessed, I could survive without it. Everything I needed, even a big grocery store, was within walking distance. The main Collier County library was only a few blocks away. This is new urbanism without design, a small hometown that didn't get spoiled by growth.

My second home was in Riverbend, a mobile home cooperative park on the Cocohatchee River in North Naples. It has now become my primary home. Riverbend has two boat basins on the south shore of the river. My double-wide is on a narrow piece of land between the two boat basins. The home was built in 1977. Like most Florida mobile homes, this one hasn't moved since the day more than thirty years ago when a couple of trucks brought it from the factory to the park.

This home gives me feelings similar to those I had when I lived on boats, except that my neighbors are mostly all over 55 years old. This is an adult park, and most of the 38 owners live full time up north and come down for the "season". The season down here is roughly January through April. From May through December, Riverbend is very quiet. The only noise one can hear is the splash of a fish jumping, the flap-flap-flap of a bird's wings, or an occasional putt-putt of an outboard motor on the river. My living room and front porch overlook the west basin, 30 feet away. The windows in the kitchen, dining room and bedrooms look out into the east basin.


Only Riverbend owners can keep boats in the boat basins. I originally bought the place to get the boat slip. Boat slips are becoming scarce and expensive in Florida. The water is very shallow in the basins and river. Only a small boat will keep you off the muddy bottom. This is no problem, because Riverbend has a maximim allowable length of 21 feet in their basins. Still, one has to be careful of the mud banks and sand bars between the park and the Gulf of Mexico.

Riverbend is about seven minutes at idle speed from the Gulf of Mexico. The winding shallows of the Cocohatchee River meander westward to Wiggins Pass. Inlets on Florida's west coast are usually called passes; on the east coast, they are called inlets. I don't know why.

A few hundred yards upstream from Riverbend is the Cocohatchee Nature Center. Tour boats and kayak rentals introduce this beautiful mangrove lined river to tourists during daylight hours. The tour boat also makes a daily trip to Wiggins Pass to catch the spectacular gulf coast sunsets.

The picture above is from Google, and it a view looking west down the Cocohatchee River. The Gulf of Mexico is at the top of the picture. Riverbend and an adjacent adult mobile home park, Palm River, are just to the right of the Old Collier golf course . Probably not many of the residents of these two parks are millionaires, but most of them feel they are living like one.