Naples Locales

Although they are situated in the ‘real’ Naples, I have not pinned down the exact locations of most of my characters’ homes in “One Summer in the Sun” and its sequel, “One Christmas in the Sun.” The Summerlin house is on the beach, a ‘little’ north of the pier, but I’m not specifying whether that is two, three, or four blocks. Somewhere in there! Nor is it based particularly on any actual house I know. It’s pretty much generic, the sort of place being built in the Twenties and Thirties.

Kris Greene and family would be somewhat further south and closer to the bay. Thirteenth? Fourteenth? Maybe, or possibly a tad further. But not as far as where Gordon ‘Grubby’ Rhein lives with his folks. That just might be in the Aqualane neighborhood.

Ronnie Deerfield is a good bit further north, just south of the Beach Golf Course. Broad Court, perhaps, or Sixth Avenue North? Close to them anyway. The Penns, incidentally, are somewhere around a half-dozen blocks further south and a little further west. And Joey is pretty much just on the other side of Highway Forty-one, aka the Tamiami Trail, as is the office of Ronnie’s dad, architect Howard Deerfield.

I have placed Joey in more-or-less the house I lived in when I was small. Joey, of course, is no longer small and her family has stayed put there all her life. The house is located on Eighth Terrace in the Lake Forest subdivision.

I’ve seen pictures of it and I know those old ‘Florida houses’ being built after WW2 and through the Fifties. Other styles became popular then, but the flat-roofed concrete block cottage was pretty common. With Terrazzo floors, more often than not, and jalousie windows. Air conditioning was still a rarity in the Fifties, so it was windows open on summer nights, and fans blowing.

Screens kept out the mosquitoes, for the most part, but the minuscule sand flies (the southwest Florida variant of the no-see-um) often found their way in. Folks attempted to grow grass in the sandy yards but sand spurs inevitably sprang up. In vacant lots, those were the norm. Here and there, one of the big pines would be left standing. That would be true in Ronnie’s neighborhood too.

The black characters I’ve mentioned mostly live in neighborhoods off Goodlette Road, but we haven’t visited any of their homes yet. That could certainly change. And the Wesolowskis are way up north in Pine Ridge. Or just outside Pine Ridge, maybe. Too far for any of the girls to be riding their bikes back and forth!

None of this is necessary to the reader but it helps me to able to look at a map and point out the neighborhoods, the routes they use for biking, walking, driving, the stores, the parks, and so on. It helps also to find house plans not too unlike the residences I have envisioned (or even sketch something myself). I like having a physical environment where I can set my characters down.