Escape WORTH AVENUE

Can't stomach yet another lunch at BiCE?

- ALEXANDRA WOLFE

Within an hour of checking in at the Ritz-Carlton Naples, my children and I were knee deep in a frantic sandcastle competition. We were putting the finishing touches on our sand octopus when a stampede of thirtysomethings trampled over it in their rush to the Gumbo Limbo, where house music oontz-oontz-oontzed. Where had all the grandparents gone?

Naples, Florida, a place I've always associated with nursing homes, graying corporate retreats, and canasta championships, is no longer just for old-timers. Now it's bursting with new settlers, new wealth, and New Yorkers. In the last year alone, the once sleepy enclave listed the country's highest-priced residential property, at nearly $300 million, and hosted the nation's highest-grossing charity wine auction, raising $33 million. The sale of Bentleys may be down nationwide, but not here; Naples was among the pricey car brand's larg est markets in the past year. Collier County, where Naples is located, had the third-highest wealth migration in America in 2021; the adjusted gross annual income of new residents was $4 billion that year.

"It's basically unrecognizable from when I was a kid," says the author Carl Hiaasen. It was in the last century, he notes, that well-heeled Midwesterners took I-75 down from Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Michigan and stopped in Naples, where they built their homes along the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, Northeasterners took I-95 straight down the East Coast and settled on the shores of the Atlantic. The landscape helped inform the vibe. While Palm Beach has long been considered glitzier, you wouldn't know it from the sales at Marissa Collections, which has been in Naples since 1975 and recently expanded to Palm Beach. "If you made a Venn diagram, there would be a 70 percent overlap in the jewelry that people buy in Naples and Palm Beach," says Marissa CEO Jay Hartington.