Courtesy WaterColor Inn and Resort
Each neighborhood has
its own personality
Seaside is the most nostalgic of the neighborhoods, a bright collection of clapboard cottages and homes bordered by picket fences, no two homes or fences the same. Its town center also serves as a gathering place for the area, with concerts in the natural amphitheater behind its picturesque post office and rows of shiny Airstream food trucks along the front of its town square.
Rosemary Beach, on South Walton’s far east end, feels like a mashup of Charleston and New Orleans with a little Old World Europe thrown in for extra flavor. It’s said that Bermuda influenced Alys Beach, Rosemary’s neighbor, all white stucco and streamlined. WaterColor is more contemporary than its next-door neighbor Seaside and in terms of acreage, about five times larger. A few original villages like Grayton Beach with its hippie/surfer vibe remain, and it is easy to see how its Old Florida cottages influenced newer developments.
Traditional resorts to the west
By contrast, to the west, where South Walton meets Destin, resorts are more traditional, with a mix of condominium towers, town homes and villas. And unlike the eastern neighborhoods, where meeting space at most resorts is 5,000 square feet or less, resorts and hotels on the west end have larger, convention-size venues.
The addition in recent years of a second conference center at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort, the area’s largest resort; upgrades at the Hilton Sandestin, the area’s largest hotel; and plans for meeting space expansion at nearby Seascape Golf, Beach and Tennis Resort, are putting South Walton on the radar for more than family vacations.
“Northwest Florida has been overlooked as far as meetings go,” said Watkins. “We want to be in it so everyone is investing in it.”
There is no question that the area attracts meetings now. Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort books more than 450 groups each year in its two conference centers, each offering some 32,000 square feet of meeting space. The Hilton Sandestin has 32,000 square feet of newly upgraded conference space and is in demand for corporate, association and military groups.
Condos fit families
The roominess and convenience of condominiums found at the west side’s resorts draws family-oriented groups. Seascape resort manages about 300 condominiums in a mix of towers and villas on its property next to the beach. Youth groups in particular find its three-bedroom condos, at 1,800 square feet the size of a house, a good value. The resort’s eight clay tennis courts also attract junior tennis tournaments and USTA competitions.
Tennis tournaments and sports groups are also attracted to Tops’l Beach and Racquet Resort. Next to Topsail Hill Preserve State Park and near Sandestin, the resort is a mix of one-to-five bedroom villas and condominiums, around 250 units in all.
Its rating as one of the top 10 tennis resorts in the country brings it tennis competitions but also business and professional groups that incorporate the game. The U.S. Dental Tennis Association has been combining continuing education classes with tennis matches there for a number of years.
Its largest meeting space, the 2,480-square-foot Center Court room is even tied to tennis. It is above the resort’s massive workout center and its wall of windows overlooks the championship tennis court.
The resort goes beyond tennis. There’s a putt-putt course, shuffleboard, kayaks and volleyball for Beach Olympics. A pool deck is the site of shrimp boils.
