Residence inAnna Maria, Florida

A raised four-bedroom cottage in the Old-Florida grain of Anna Maria Island, where a town ordinance has kept the buildings low and the pace lower for a hundred years. A deep wrap-around porch runs the whole front under a standing-seam roof; sea grape and palm close in around it, and the Gulf glints turquoise between the trunks. There is not a highrise on the island, and there never will be.

Eight guests, four bedrooms, four baths, a heated pool behind a screened lanai, and a private dock on the bay side for the morning that calls for it. Bicycles are the way to move here; the trolley is free and the island is three miles end to end. Beach setup is arranged on request; Sarasota-Bradenton is thirty minutes by chauffeured transfer.