The New Face of Naples

On Tupelo Road in Pine Ridge Estates, a new contemporary house is rising where a more traditional home once stood. Clean horizontal lines. Walls of glass. Natural materials. A flat, low-pitched roofline.

It is the kind of house that would have looked out of place in Naples twenty years ago. Today it is becoming part of the landscape.

I notice these changes nearly every morning on my power walks through Pine Ridge. The wide streets, towering trees and sprawling lots still feel remarkably peaceful, even as Naples grows. Those walks have also given me a front-row seat to one of the city's most interesting transformations.

When I arrived here in 2001, Pine Ridge was already changing. Modest ranch homes and cottages on oversized lots were giving way to expansive luxury estates, many shaped by the Mediterranean architecture that became so closely associated with Naples: barrel-tile roofs, arches, columns, grand entrances and elaborate landscaping.

For a while, it seemed the neighborhood had finished that chapter. It hadn't.

Today another transformation is underway. Homes that once defined Naples are being replaced by a different design language: openness, simplicity, natural light, technology and a seamless relationship between indoor and outdoor living.

Pine Ridge is especially suited to this kind of change. Its large lots and relative architectural freedom let homeowners and designers build houses that would be harder to approve in communities with stricter guidelines. In 2018, ATTOM Data Solutions ranked Pine Ridge No. 1 among more than 10,000 U.S. neighborhood housing markets, based on affordability, home-price appreciation, school scores, crime rates, unemployment and property taxes. Even then, its look kept evolving.

The shift away from traditional Mediterranean design did not start with the pandemic. Local architects had been experimenting with contemporary alternatives long before 2020. What is different now is how visible those alternatives have become. Remote work may have accelerated the change by giving professionals and entrepreneurs more freedom to choose where they live. Some of today's buyers are newcomers. Others are a new generation of families already tied to Southwest Florida. Either way, they are asking for more glass, cleaner lines, smart-home technology, workspaces, larger indoor-outdoor living areas, and better energy efficiency and storm resilience.

Pine Ridge is especially suited to this kind of change. Its large lots and relative architectural freedom let homeowners and designers build houses that would be harder to approve in communities with stricter guidelines. In 2018, ATTOM Data Solutions ranked Pine Ridge No. 1 among more than 10,000 U.S. neighborhood housing markets, based on affordability, home-price appreciation, school scores, crime rates, unemployment and property taxes. Even then, its look kept evolving.

The shift away from traditional Mediterranean design did not start with the pandemic. Local architects had been experimenting with contemporary alternatives long before 2020. What is different now is how visible those alternatives have become. Remote work may have accelerated the change by giving professionals and entrepreneurs more freedom to choose where they live. Some of today's buyers are newcomers. Others are a new generation of families already tied to Southwest Florida. Either way, they are asking for more glass, cleaner lines, smart-home technology, workspaces, larger indoor-outdoor living areas, and better energy efficiency and storm resilience.

Pine Ridge is only one window into that evolution. Drive through Aqualane Shores, the Moorings, Coquina Sands, Old Naples, Park Shore or Port Royal and you see the same conversation between old and new. Traditional homes remain essential to Naples. Contemporary architecture increasingly stands beside them.

That contrast may make Naples more interesting, not less. This does not have to be a story about contemporary design replacing Mediterranean Naples. The city's character was built over generations, and much of its appeal comes from those layers: modest early Florida homes, Mediterranean estates, coastal residences and today's glass-and-stone houses.

Modern architecture can become another layer rather than an eraser.

Every generation leaves its signature. For decades, much of Naples was written in stucco, arches and barrel tile. Today another chapter is being written in glass, light, natural materials and clean lines. On my walks through Pine Ridge, including past the new construction on Tupelo Road, I can watch that chapter rising from the ground.

I often wonder what someone walking these same streets twenty-five years from now will think of the Naples our generation left behind.