Moving to Naples, Florida has provided inspiration for a new historical mystery, set during the glamorous 1920s when the rich would come stay at the Old Naples Hotel to whet their appetite for hunting, fishing, and adventure in a pristine paradise far removed from Prohibition Era rules. My own experience volunteering with the Naples Historical Society, immersing myself in history while sitting on the porch of historic Palm Cottage, has enabled me to imagine what it must have been like, although the cottage now has air conditioning and (thankfully!) the mosquitoes are no where near as numerous as they were in pre-abatement days.
Built in 1895, Palm Cottage it is the oldest house still standing in Naples. It was originally designed as overflow for the Old Naples Hotel which opened in January 1889 and had no kitchen or electricity. Guests went to the hotel for all their meals and activities. Back then Naples was scrubby and sandy – quite unlike the lush, verdant landscape you see now. Palm Cottage was one of the early cottages built to house wealthy guests visiting for the winter season and by 1900 development in Naples radiated out from the hotel. It remained pretty rustic though as neither electricity nor indoor plumbing came to Naples until 1926. Guests arrived by boat and even in the 1920s many remained reluctant to brave the unpaved road from Fort Myers (and those who did called it the “Wish to God” road as they’d wished they’d taken another route!). The Tamiami Trail wasn’t completed until 1928 and so when I decided to set my mystery in the early 1920s, I had to consider not only how my characters would navigate their adventures in this landscape but also how they must have felt, isolated at the edge of the everglades. The more I researched the type of people who came as guests, the more I also began to wonder about the divide between those wealthy enough to come fish and hunt each winter and those who lived here year round, trying to make their living in a land that was pretty unforgiving even by the 1920s.