Slowly but surely, Palm Island recovers
On a hot and only slightly breezy Friday in July, some visitors to Palm Island Resort were out playing pickleball. Another group was at Coconuts Cafe, the little shop below Rum Bay Restaurant, renting a golf cart. They had just arrived from North Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska to attend a beachside wedding. Palm Island hosts dozens of such events each year and are quite well known for that amenity.
At the counter, resort staffer Valerie White reminded the group of the rule that one must be 16 years old to drive a golf cart on the island.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” joked Mike Fassino, a member of the wedding party.
Below, Colleen Anderson of Minnesota, Leon Klein of North Dakota and Mike Fassino of Nebraska at the golf cart rental counter at Coconuts, Palm Island Resort. At the desk are staff Kevin Balasek and Valerie White.
They are not the only folks on the island. Many of the people there right now are workers, trying to finish up the latter stages of repairs from Hurricane Ian. Inside the resort, reservations are now taken on island by staff who are working out in a freshly painted reception area. Being the only restaurant on the island, Rum Bay normally does a decent business even in the height of summer. At the little bar inside the establishment, strangers quickly turn into friends and you’ll find many of the same seats filled by the same people almost every night.
Many were relieved to hear that Palm Island Resort fared as well as it did. It has become a generational family place to visit, with many grandparents taking their grandchildren to see Redbeard the Pirate perform, to eat ice cream at the tables outside Coconuts and play on the purple turtle playground, just as they did when they were young.
Ian Recovery
Palm Island Resort is indeed on an island, reachable by either its own car ferry, water taxi or private boat. The resort opened in December 1983, a sister resort to Useppa, developed by brothers Dean and Gar Beckstead. While it was Gar who originally bought and began both island businesses, Dean stepped in and eventually ran Palm Island while Gar stayed at Useppa.
Its charm and appeal of Palm Island is that it is an island, but that short bit of Intracoastal Waterway between the island and the land side made the hurricane recovery doubly difficult, especially in this year of their 40th anniversary.
“We had to cut our way to the island,” said Palm Island Resort General Manager Robert Brown, as he recounted the beginning of the recovery after Hurricane Ian. “There were trees down blocking the main road all the way down.”
Initially it was owner Adam Beckstead (Dean’s son) and a few key maintenance staff who began the long slog of clearing the way to the resort.
Recovery was slow at first. Tree trimmers worked into the night, and some stayed overnight. The brush and tree removal alone took over a month and a half.
“The [property] owners were feeding the staff who were working,” said Brown. Island owners also contributed to a matched fund for resort employees.
The resort is a series of associations with different setups. Units in Palm Island Village II had considerable damage, as did Beach Villas. The resort’s four-home units, for instance, had elevator and interior damage.
The logistics of how to organize a rebuilding and cleanup when everything has to arrive and depart by barge means that everything just takes longer. The barge is big enough for a PODS truck and repair equipment, but the number of vehicles each day meant that residents and contractors were sometimes waiting an hour for a five-minute barge ride. The usual 250 to 300 cars a day of Palm Island Transit turned to 600 a day.
The tides are even a factor, as are U.S. Coast Guard regulations regarding the ferry.
“The Coast Guard is very strict,” said Brown. “High tide, low tide. The barge has got to match up to that rail.”
The recovery work was not as straightforward as fixing up a hotel, as not all the of the housing units on the grounds of the resort elected to put their units in the rental program, but they did need to share the road and the ferry.
“Almost everybody had some damage,” said Brown.
There were some blessings, including that there was no storm surge. The island’s ample mangroves and natural areas protected the island from erosion, as the landscape was designed to absorb storms.
The casual observer would only see freshly pruned gardens. Not so much for the staff.
‘“It took a lot out of us,” said Brown. “When I started in January, I would drive around. There was so much vegetation. I can see where it’s not anymore. Every time I came across on the barge, I would see something different. I would see something missing.”
Putting Pieces Together
The part of Palm Island that is the resort is made up of condos, single-family homes, duplexes and timeshares. While the marina was sold a decade ago, the two ferries of Palm Island Transit, trams and a water taxi add a logistics emphasis to a service that is usually more about guest relations, housekeeping, catering and food and beverage.
Ownership adds to the recovery complexity. For instance, one section of residences has beach houses owned in an “A-B-C-D” fashion, where four families share a house. In the scenario, the “A” family gets two weeks, the “B” folks gets two weeks, etc. After all four have taken their traditional turn, each family gets two months, for another 10 months, to add up to a year.
Notwithstanding the challenges, the resort and Rum Bay opened fairly quickly after the storm – the week before Thanksgiving. Today, the water taxi runs to the restaurant beginning each day at 11:30 a.m., bringing lunchtime guests to the resort, landing at a mangrove-lined dock not far from Rum Bay.
The restaurant got a new roof and new interior recently. During Ian the ice machine was blown away, and it, as well as other equipment, had to be replaced.
“We found it [the ice machine] in the woods,” said Brown.
Part of the work has just been to get the place looking presentable. Some of the signage is still down, and the fencing that hid the maintenance area blew down and had to be rebuilt.
Soffit contractors are one of the last steps, as well as lattice at the entrance gate. The entryway that gave the island a touch of the old TV show Fantasy Island has yet to be fixed, and the greeting station will be permanently moved.
Brown is not quite at a relaxation point. Like so many others in our area (and many of his staff), he is still dealing with his own recovery zone at his house in North Port.
“My house was pretty much down to the studs,” said Brown, who commuted for a time from Lakewood Ranch.
“I will be looking for that breathing room in about two weeks,” he said. “Once my house is done, I can relax.”
Through this process, most guests – both regular and new – have been forgiving of the disrepair.
“You get people trying to book rooms that we don’t have,” said Brown. “When we tell them the place is under construction, that they might not want to come here, they are insistent. They want time on a tropical island. They say, ‘No no, we need a vacation! We need to come down! It’s too cold up here!’ Then they come down and they’re surprised to see someone working on their roof. They just have to see it for themselves.”
Water taxi access to Rum Bay Restaurant can be found near the back of the old Leverock’s Restaurant – just follow the sidewalk between the parking area and the marina dockage. The taxi is open daily, beginning at 11:30 a.m., for $6. To take the barge by car it costs $55, for pedestrians and bicyclists it is $10. More information can be found at palmisland.com.
