What Should You Know Before Buying a Home in Port Royal, Naples?

Port Royal is a private peninsula of curving deep-water canals at the southern tip of Naples, bordered by the Gulf of Mexico and Naples Bay, with no bridges between the canals and the Gulf. Before you buy here, confirm four things for the exact address: what the water behind it can actually take, which kind of frontage the lot has, what the architectural guidelines allow you to change, and how the private Port Royal Club works for a new owner. The house matters, but in Port Royal the water is what you are paying for.

I am Kris Asquith, Broker Associate at Premiere Plus Realty, and Naples is one of the nine Southwest Florida markets I work. This article walks through the questions I take buyers through on a Port Royal home, in the order I would ask them.

Port Royal sits at the very southern end of Naples, south of Aqualane Shores and Olde Naples. It was founded in 1948 and holds over 600 single-family home sites laid out along a network of curving canals. It is not a gated community. It is a neighborhood governed by strict architectural guidelines, which is a different thing, and the difference matters when you plan any work on a house.

There is no golf course here. The Port Royal Club is a private beachfront club, not a golf club, and the name sometimes leads people to assume otherwise. My Port Royal community page covers the neighborhood itself; this article is about the purchase.

The defining feature of Port Royal is that nothing fixed crosses the route out. The canals open to Naples Bay, and the bay meets the Gulf at Gordon Pass. Because there is no bridge in the way, the height of the boat above the water is not the limit it becomes on many other canals along this coast. Most properties carry private dockage able to take large yachts.

"Most properties" is the phrase to hold onto. What one specific home can handle still comes down to the lot, so on every address I confirm:

• Depth at low tide, at the dock itself and along the canal to the bay, not an average and not a figure from a listing.
• Canal width, and whether the boat you own can turn and come alongside comfortably at that spot.
• The dock and lift: their size, age, condition and rated capacity, and what the permits on file allow you to change.
• The run itself. Much of the inland water around Naples carries posted slow-speed and idle-speed zones, so time the trip to open water rather than measuring it on a map.

My article on how to reach the Gulf by boat from a Naples waterfront home goes through each of these checks in more detail.

Ask this one for every address, because the peninsula touches three kinds of water: its own canals, Naples Bay, and the Gulf. They are sold on different things.

Canal and bay frontage is where the dock lives. That is Gulf access: navigable water behind the house and a route out to open water. A lot that faces open Gulf beach is Gulf-front, and Gulf-front is a beach, a view and an exposure, not a place to tie up a boat. If a large boat is the reason you are looking at Port Royal, the frontage you want is the canal or the bay.

Frontage also changes the rules. A home near the beach can sit seaward of Florida's Coastal Construction Control Line, which adds a state permitting layer to building and major work. My article on the Coastal Construction Control Line in Naples explains how to find out where a lot sits.

Strict architectural guidelines protect the look of a street, and they also shape what you can do with the house you buy. If you are buying with a renovation or a rebuild in mind, read the guidelines and understand the review process before you set a budget, not after closing. Ask who administers them, what needs approval, and how long a review takes.

Those guidelines sit on top of ordinary government permitting, not instead of it. Building, dock and seawall permits come from the government with jurisdiction over the address, and my guide to whether a Naples home is in the city or the county shows how to confirm which office that is.

On an older house in a flood zone, also find out where it stands against the 50% rule. When improvements or repairs reach half of the structure's value, the whole house has to be brought up to current flood standards, which can turn a remodel into a rebuild.

Do not assume it does. The Port Royal Club is a private club, and owning a home in the neighborhood and belonging to the club are separate questions. If the club is part of why you want to be here, ask early how membership works for a new owner, what joining involves, and what it costs to belong, and get the answer from the club itself rather than from a listing description.

The same goes for anything else a listing says comes with the house. If it matters to your decision, confirm it in writing during the contract.

In a neighborhood that dates to 1948, the age of the house, the age of the dock and the age of the seawall can be three different numbers. I take each of them separately:

• The seawall or revetment. Whether the lot meets the water with a seawall or a stone revetment, have it inspected by a marine contractor and ask for permit and repair records.
• Flood zone and elevation. Ask for the elevation certificate, confirm the flood zone for that exact address, and ask the seller for the Florida flood disclosure and any flood claims history.
• Insurance quotes, early. Get homeowners and flood quotes in the first days of the contract. Flood policies carry waiting periods, and the answer can change how you feel about a particular house.
• Permit history. On a home that has been renovated, confirm the work was permitted and closed out.

Build all of it into the inspection period of my buying process, while you can still ask questions, negotiate or walk away.

All three are deep-water canal neighborhoods in Naples with no fixed bridges between the dock and the Gulf, and none of them is gated. Aqualane Shores, immediately north along Naples Bay, is within walking distance of Third Street South and Fifth Avenue South. Royal Harbor, on the eastern shore of the bay, has no mandatory homeowners association at all. Port Royal is the larger peninsula at the tip, with dockage for larger vessels and its private beachfront club.

Which one fits depends on the boat you own, how you want to use the beach and town, and how much structure you want around your plans for the house.

Waterfront is the core of what I do, and in Port Royal I start at the dock and work back to the house. If Port Royal is on your list, or you are thinking about selling a home there, get in touch with me directly or call (239) 300-1427, and tell me what you would keep at the dock.

This article is a general overview of the neighborhood and the questions to ask. It is not legal, insurance, engineering or navigation advice for any particular property.