South Seas….an internationally known full-service resort that dominates the northern half of Captiva Island. This once-remote and isolated mangrove island which encompasses approximately 330 acres, the resort, sits on land first occupied by Calusa Indians thousands of years ago, followed by a pirate or two (as legend has it). At the turn of the century hardy homesteaders planted crops and citrus groves. Its history as a resort property humbly began as a small hideaway in the 1930s. The first homesteader of the property that is now South Seas arrived in 1898. George Washington Carter, a Civil War veteran from Traders Hill, Georgia and his family primarily fished for a living, but planted vegetables, sugar cane, avocados and citrus.
A hurricane hit in 1921, destroying the agricultural operations. But in 1925 Clarence Chadwick purchased the property, began planting coconut palms and established a key lime plantation. His plantation became the largest producer of key limes in the world.
In 1942 Wesley Kincaid and Bill Hunt from Connecticut discovered the area on a fishing trip and in the name of the American Hotel Company they purchased the property and turned it into a small fishing camp known as South Seas Plantation. One of the visitors to South Seas Wally Watts, an RCA executive fell in love with the property and purchased it in 1961 for $225,000. This is when South Seas began to resemble the resort it is today. With the opening of the Sanibel Causeway in 1963, South Seas became a popular island resort.
In 1972 just as Mariner Properties was establishing itself on Sanibel, Bob Taylor, while vacationing on Sanibel, saw the island as an area on the verge of growth that offered a great opportunity for a new company to get started. Taylor at the age of 28, decided to leave his job as management consultant and formed his new company. He contacted friends and potential investors, including Allen TenBroek, for financial backing, formed Mariner Properties, and soon moved to Sanibel. With the help of a Cleveland-based real estate investment group in September 1972, they closed the $3.5million deal on South Seas. The new upgraded South Seas opened as a vacation destination in time for Christmas 1972.
In 1998 MeriStar, a Washington, D.C. based Real Estate Investment Trust, purchased the property and immediately spent $15 million enhancing South Seas and also dropped “Plantation” from the resort name to “modernize” it. In August, 2002 MeriStar merged with Interstate Hotels, making South Seas part of the nation’s largest independent hotel management company. As part of the deal with MeriStar, Mariner held on to two parcels and retained development rights for 28 remaining units, which will take the property to its build-out of 912 units. From a bunch of rookies not knowing what they had or what to do with it in 1972 to a world-known resort. At its peak, Mariner had five thousand employees and was the largest private employer in Lee County. South Seas was called their crown jewel.
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