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History

Port Royal History
Rooted in Pirate Lore

A fascination with the 17th Century Jamaican city where rowdy pirates reveled led developer John Glen Sample to adopt the name Port Royal when he began what was Naples most adventurous real estate endeavor.

Port Royal’s namesake in history was, after all, the den of privateers and smugglers looting ships in the Caribbean. Sample envisioned a unique and exclusive development, a winter retreat for the social elite, a neighborhood of gracious homes, immaculate lawns and prestigious addresses - addresses which, incidentally, bear names such as Gin Lane, Rum Row, Morgan’s Cove, Buccaneer’s Roost and Galleon Drive.

The story of Sample, an entrepreneur who personally financed and developed Port Royal, is as intriguing as the pirates in whose memory he named the area. Beginning in 1938, Sample - who had an illustrious career in advertising as the owner of the agency that developed the radio soap opera - bought up pieces of swamp land, hammocks and beach front. In the late 1940s and 1950s, he began personally shaping its future.

Port Royal is composed largely of a series of man-made peninsulas, surrounded by bays and coves. The waterways empty into Naples Bay and connect with the Gulf of Mexico through Gordon Pass. The area stretches south from 21st Avenue South to Gordon Pass, bounded on the west by the Gulf of Mexico and on the east by Naples Bay.

Sample set high standards for Port Royal’s development, including the requirement that home plans must be drawn up by an approved architect and then approved by the Port Royal Association. Until his death in 1971, every piece of land was sold to a buyer he personally interviewed and accepted. All of the houses built in Port Royal were first approved by Sample. And in 1959, when the Port Royal Beach Club was constructed at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, the $1 million it cost to build was financed by Sample himself.

Port Royal in many ways set the stage for what Naples was to become. It established a standard of quality that later developers emulated in order to succeed.

Sample sold the first building sites - each one-half acre or more - for $7,500 to $12,000. Today, Port Royal building sites command an average of $432,750 for lots with no navigable water and $1,417,450 for lots on navigable water.

Port Royal is still the unique and desirable neighborhood that Sample envisioned. Now the Port Royal Property Owners Association - composed of your neighbors - assumes the responsibilities of the developer, reviewing and approving the building plans, assuring that deed restrictions are observed and serving as advocate with city and county governments.

Back in the early days of Port Royal, Miami Herald staffer Nixon Smiley wrote about his visit to Naples, touring the neighborhood in a pewter-gray Rolls Royce with John Glen Sample behind the wheel.

“My ambition is to make Port Royal the finest place in the world to live.” Sample told the reporter. “And I believe I’m succeeding.”

Port Royal residents say he did.