When we built a house a few years later, we thought ourselves the luckiest people alive. Oh, to be able to plan a few months each winter in Boca Grande! But even then, smitten as we were with Boca Grande, we had not a clue how it would become so much more than just a winter island respite from the snow-slushy north. Boca Grande began for us as a winter escape, not a “destination.” Then it absorbed us. Over the past 20+ years, we were submersed into a community of wonderfully involved, interesting and interested people, fabulously close friends. Unlike other of Florida seashore locales, Boca Grande was not a beach, a resort. It was a life.