In Santa rosa beach and neighboring
Seaside (situated in the florida panhandle halfway between panama City and
destin on scenic Highway 30a), people
seem to live a life of leisure...with a passion. Locals come by their tans honestly.
whether they’re surfing, kayaking, fishing or strolling the idyllic streets and
nostalgia-inducing shop fronts, they’re
on the move. they’re having good, clean
fun in scene after scene from sprung-to-life Norman rockwell paintings.
In Seaside’s town square, mop-topped youths wait in line for hand-dipped ice cream, you can still find some
righteous vinyl in the record shop and
carefree kids tumble down the slopes of
a grassy amphitheatre. and at waterColor Inn—the beachfront showpiece of
a 499-acre master planned residential
community that was built with families
in mind—guests enjoy complimentary
use of bicycles, kayaks, canoes and fishing gear and from the look of things they
take full advantage of it.
“the first thing you have to get used to
is all the bike riders,” says waterColor's
general manager eric Sather. “people are
everywhere on bikes and we encourage
it. there’s something wholesome about
it that just fits this community.”
geographically, waterColor has a bonus most beachfront communities can’t
boast. western Lake borders the area
and feeds into the gulf, providing calm-
water fishing, views and recreation. the
boathouse, in the center of the commu-
nity, offers cane-pole fishing, dining and
a lengthy walking bridge over a brackish
inlet of the 220-acre coastal dune lake.
“fishing is the number one recreational
activity here, whether it’s in the lake
or deep sea charters, we really have a
sportsman’s paradise,” Sather says.
watercolor guests have three distinct
options for golf. Nearest to the resort is
Camp Creek golf Club, a tom fazio gem
where native grasses frame almost ev-
ery hole and inventive, ample bunkering
creates sand-framed panoramas that
fazio calls “dunescapes.”
More than 1 million cubic yards of
dirt were moved to build this novel lay-
out, resulting in surprising elevation
changes and rolling fairways not often
found in florida. the green at the par-
four 352-yard 13th rises some 30 feet
from the fairway and is protected by a
lake to the front-right of the green and 15
