ENGLEWOOD - A two-lane blacktop snakes through Manasota Key under canopies of gnarled oaks and tropical plants.

Stately Mediterranean homes peek from walls of dripping bougainvillea and hibiscus. Sea oats jut up from cream-colored dunes as pines list in the calm breeze and sea grapes meander in the sand like ink splotched on gray parchment.

Photo by Ladale Lloyd
Barrett Long, 19, of Venice rides the surf on a skim board at Manasota Beach.

Unlike much of Southwest Florida's coastline, Manasota Key is an unspoiled refuge of Old Florida. There are no high-rise condominiums, no snarled traffic and no congestion - just a serene setting on a winding two-lane road through Florida's past.

Locals call it Florida's best kept secret. But as more Floridians look for vacation spots closer to home and away from urban crowds, they are discovering the small island off the coast of Englewood.

"All of a sudden people are realizing just how nice it is here,'' says John F. McCarthy, general manager of Sarasota County Parks and Recreation.

Manasota Key is a 15-mile barrier island that sits squarely between Sarasota and Charlotte counties. The Sarasota side is less developed and more pristine. That is in part because Sarasota officials were successful in the 1970s in getting the state to make their part of the island a conservation district, protecting it from development, McCarthy says.

The Charlotte County side, however, is a more commercial district with resorts, hotels, restaurants and shops, but no high rises or congestion.

The key is home to four public beaches, each with a distinctive character, offering miles of light-umber sand, rolling dunes and an array of activities. Two of the beaches boast nature trails lined with fragrant tropical plants such as snowberry and sea lavender.

Secluded lagoons offer boaters a place to anchor, swim and picnic under shade trees along Lemon Bay. On the beaches, young people play volleyball or ride the surf on skim boards while retirees watch the sun melt into the Gulf.

In late spring, loggerhead sea turtles come ashore to lay eggs in the warm sand. Markers keep visitors from disturbing the nests. Visitors are discouraged from bringing dogs because of the fear that they'll disturb delicate nesting areas.

The largest and most developed, Englewood Beach offers 1,200 feet of elevated boardwalk for shade, rest and sunset watching. The island has a public beach for just about any occasion, says Laura Kleiss Hoeft, Charlotte County's parks and recreation director.

"We have to decide what kind of mood we're in going to the beach,'' Kleiss Hoeft says. "I first determine the family's mood and then determine the beach. If we just want to get away, then we head down to Stump Pass. If we want to see people, it's Englewood.''

Manasota Key's past is as diverse and colorful as its tropical foliage. The island was once home to nudist colonies and a haunted house. Calusa Indians first occupied the island as far back as 400 B.C.

Herbert Nicholas, a farmer from Englewood, Ill., settled in the area around 1884 to grow lemons. After a freeze destroyed the citrus industry in the late 19th century, speculators turned to milling lumber. Around 1907, Swedish immigrant and sawmill owner Carl G. Johansen moved to the island with his wife, mother and daughters, thinking the sea air would help his asthma.

He built one of the first houses on the island and called it the Hermitage. The main part of the single-story battens wood-frame house still stands, with additions made over the years. The structure sits on 3.4 acres surrounded by a detached kitchen, two cisterns and other small buildings. The site is perhaps the most talked about place on the island.

Legend has it that the house is haunted. Johansen's mother, Matilda, had a sacred lead she used for healing. She kept it hidden behind a clock in the house. After she died, Johansen's wife, Anna, kept hearing windows open and close in the grandmother's old room. Anna found the lead, buried it and the noises stopped ... at least for a while.

Besides Matilda's, the house has a way of freeing other spirits. In the late '30s, during the height of the naturalist movement, the Hermitage was home to a nudist's colony. Today, plans are under way to make the site an artist colony, McCarthy says.

Just down the road from the Hermitage was another nudist resort at what is now known as the Manasota Beach Club. (Guests of the resort are now required to wear clothes - at least while outdoors).

Nestled under a grove of old live oaks, the 25-acre complex is the premier resort on the island, says real estate agent Nelda Thompson. The resort is centered around the original tin- roof structure, built around the turn of the last century, and now serving as the restaurant.

"It's really, really unique,'' says Thompson, who has lived on the island since 1969. "It's like stepping back in time.''

The same natural charm that attracted people to the island years ago still draws visitors today.

Manasota Beach

When Manasota Beach's sun drops low in the late spring sky and the Gulf water turns from turquoise to amber, beachgoers lazily turn the pages of their paperbacks. Young people toss skim boards in the surf and ride the waves as herons spy their evening meals.

Manasota Beach sits on the north end of the island and is the first beach you come to after crossing the Venice Inlet. The 14-acre park boasts boardwalks, picnic areas, a boat ramp and dock on the bay side. It is the only beach on the key with lifeguards on duty during the day.

The beach attracts local young people from Venice who come to skim board, retirees who live in area, as well as Europeans who visit nearby Warm Mineral Springs, McCarthy says.

Blind Pass Beach

About a mile and a half south of Manasota Beach, the key is so narrow here you can almost splash water from the Gulf into the bay. The 66-acre Blind Pass Beach stretches nearly a half-mile down the Gulf. The bay side offers visitors a nature trail that leads through canopied mangroves and tropical foliage.

The dark specs in the sand along the key are pulverized fossils, McCarthy explains. Mixed with the white sand, they give the beach a creamy, umber glow. The dark fossils absorb the sun's heat, making the ground warm.

Visitors such as Richard Rack, a retiree who moved to the area from Ohio, spend afternoons scraping the shoreline for prehistoric sharks' teeth. The teeth, some more than a million years old, wash ashore after storms. The dark fossils range from a fraction of an inch to more than three inches. Hunting for them is a favorite activity of island beachgoers.

Englewood Beach At the Charlotte County line, Manasota Key Road opens to a commercial district. The area is less serene than the northern end, but Englewood Beach offers comfort and amenities not found at the other beaches.

It is within walking distance of restaurants, shops and lodging areas. Last year, Charlotte County, which runs the beach, refurbished its park, rebuilt a 1,200-foot boardwalk with pavilions and added new playground equipment and a volleyball court.

Newly planted cabbage palms dot the landscape of the mile-long beach. Ramps on the boardwalk make the park more accessible to older and disabled visitors. The facility also has a concession area, unisex bathhouses and showers.

A 2.3-acre peninsula on the bay side of the road features a picnic pavilion and walking trails. The county plans to add a fishing dock, Kleiss Hoeft says.

Stump Pass Beach And State Park

A mile south of Englewood Beach, Manasota Key Road ends at Stump Pass Beach and State Park. Like the northern beaches, Stump Pass boasts a wild beach of rolling dunes, sea oats, railroad vine and sea grapes.

The 25-acre park also offers shady nature trails that lead to secluded lagoons on Lemon Bay.

"You can walk two miles down the beach and it feels like you are getting away from everything,'' said park ranger Randall Shine. "This is what a natural Florida beach is suppose to look like.''

The natural setting attracted Ohio retiree Skip Wilson to the area.

"It's relatively unspoiled when you consider the east coast of Florida,'' Wilson says, wading in knee-deep water next to his anchored boat on the bay side of the park. "There's something about the water down here and the way it calms you.''

Janet Wake of Hampshire, England, says she and her family have vacationed at Stump Pass for the past 17 years.

"It's quiet, peaceful, natural and unspoiled,'' she says. "We just fell in love with it the first time we came over.''

Park manager Reginald Norman says with all of its natural charm, the state wants to make Stump Pass even more organic.

He says for the past year or so the state has killed off exotic plants that have invaded the island since the early part of the last century, choking off natural species. Workers have already cut down two-thirds of some of the worst offenders ... water-guzzling Australian pines that once lined the beach.

On a clear spring day, back up the road at the Lock & Key Restaurant - a bright pink building with a green awning - beachgoers cool off under swirling ceiling fans. A few customers amble up to the bar and stare out the wide window at Englewood Beach and the Gulf of Mexico.

They wait for what promises to be a spectacular sunset.

Restaurant owner Don Atamanchuk is one of the lucky ones who can celebrate this scene every evening.

"This is definitely an area that's nice and relaxed,'' he says, "and has that Old Florida feel.''