Something Funny’s Going on Around Here by Jeff Lytle

Despite zoning laws that seemed to forbid multi-story condo projects, developers once were so sure of winning ultimate approval they would proceed with construction, in full public view. Some of the projects were tapered as they reached skyward. How could neighbors object to something with a “wedding cake” design?

The scenario is small potatoes for Dave Barry and Carl Hiassen, who have made careers out of writing in newspapers and books about the oddities of Florida.

Join me on Memory Lane for odd things that have happened around the usually prim and proper Naples area. The name change from Naples Philharmonic Center of the Arts to Artis-Naples surely caught us off-guard, especially when the classic original title seemed to work just fine.

Still, it was a welcome step beyond the norm when Artis booked Book of Mormon, a Broadway musical as profane and blasphemous as it gets.

It was odd when sand being dredged onto Naples’ precious beaches for renourishment brought the shock of baseball-sized rocks mixed in. Solutions actually bandied about included enlisting youth scout groups to gather them up or asking residents to lug some home for their gardens.

Oddities abound at the Naples Pier. In the late 1950s and 1960s, against the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis, two full-fledged U.S. submarines docked there. Archives show a news mobile from WNOG-AM, which stood for Wonderful Naples on the Gulf, on the job at the west end of the pier.

It was odd in a vintage Naples way to have city officials install and then remove heavy-duty binoculars, to which tourists would feed quarters, to protect beachfront residents from peeping Toms.

Then again, city officials had time to fret about such things. They were and still are oddly immune from weightier issues confronting Collier County commissioners such as building jails and roads.

Another shore thing: for decades we heard all about the dangers of storm surge accompanying hurricanes. Only recently did we experience first-hand what storm surge means, with cars floating down Gulfshore Boulevard and massive destruction to buildings.

It is odd that the Naples Winter Wine Festival, one of the biggest fundraisers of its kind in the world, takes place in a community that produces no wine – just lots of philanthropic wine lovers. Meanwhile, a more modestly priced charity event, Empty Bowls, grew to attract huge crowds at Cambier Park, usually on the same date in January, to feed the hungry. Meals of Hope, the main Naples non-profit now funded by Empty Bowls, started life to feed the poor in places such as Haiti. Now it feeds needy locals, with meals of rice and beans, for example, heading home in students’ backpacks.

It was oddly refreshing by today’s standards when Republicans worked closely with Democrats to draft rules for county commissioners (all Republicans) and high-ranking staff to avoid gifts from developers and others who sought to curry fancy. The effort had pushback from commissioners who wanted to keep gifts of golf outings, galas, meals and even cash as kindnesses from dear friends.

The ethics spotlight was well earned, following the indictment of four county officials for seeking shares of an ambitious development known as Stadium Naples, with elaborate 18th hole grandstands for pro events to promote the homes around it. Oddly, as columnist Brent Batten first observed, the made-for-TV atmosphere would have clicked without the corruption.

Batten also helps recall a Guinness world record set in 2000 in Everglades City–the world’s largest grilled cheese sandwich, befitting the Cheese and Florida Cracker Festival. The sandwich measured 5’ by 10,’ weighed 320 pounds and required two forklift trucks to flip it on the grill. Munchers got a souvenir button from the Cabot cheesemakers.

It was odd for a conservative county government to go all-in on a strange new sport, pickleball, with spectacular success. It is odd to recall booming Central Naples was home to a horrible shantytown slum known as McDonald’s Quarters.

Odd that Naples boasts not one but two Ritz-Carltons– on the same street.

Even more odd, some otherwise smart people in town feared the first Ritz would spell doom for tourism, which beforehand marketed modest, low-key, rustic lodging. The list of oddities goes on and on, with why it was so hard to achieve the efficiencies of fire service consolidation and why the sudden switch to building apartments for rent instead of condos for sale.

Now … please tell me what I missed. And does anyone know the name of the “wedding cake” condo on the east side of north-south Gulf Shore Drive on Vanderbilt Beach?

Jeff Lytle covered and commented on the Naples area from 1979 to 2014, when he retired as editorial page editor and TV host at the Naples Daily News. Contact him at jlytle1951@gmail.com.