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By Mary Moore Mason, Essentially America, Summer 2007
North America is full of hedonistic inns, hotels, and resorts overlooking rivers, lakes, oceans and even tidal creeks and marshes. We sent Chris Coplans to visit three charmers – one set beside the San Fransisco Bay, another beside a mountain lake only 90 miles north of Manhattan, and a third nestled beside a river flowing through a Georgia plantation. Meanwhile Mary Moore Mason headed back to her native Virginia and to the neighbouring state of Maryland, where she relaxed in two inns close to the Chesapeake Bay before continuing south to another overnight idyll, this time beside the Gulf of Mexico on Florida’s semi-tropical Anna Maria Island.
Cedar Cover Resort and Cottages – Holmes Beach, Florida
Cross the bridge from south-west Florida’s mainland on to Anna Maria Island and you arrive not just in a totally-different place, but also in a totally-different time. There’s not a high-rise building in sight, young boys and their dads are fishing from the end of the City Pier, the free Manatee Trolley is wending its unhurried way down the main street, and overlooking the sugar sand beach is one of those laid-back beach retreats that takes you back to 60s America. Almost as soon as I check into the Cedar Cove Resort and Cottages, its amiable owner, Eric Carns – casual in shorts, a tropical shirt and flip-flops – offers me a restorative margarita, either in a thatched tiki hut or on the wonderfully-wide beach rolling down to the azure waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
I am informed that there’s a live TV camera overlooking the beach in case I want to phone a friend, wave and make them envious. Unfair, I decide, and, instead, check out my light, airy beachfront cottage. It consists of a large, attractively-furnished sitting room, fully-equipped kitchen and bedroom and modern bath – all decorated in restful, pastel colours. Other one- and two-bedroom accommodation is in the main building and in various cottages. They all have private sundecks and patios.
Although there’s no restaurant at Cedar Cove, it’s just a short distance by car or the free trolley to a great little restaurant that offers delicious fresh seafood and a pianist playing romantic old standards. There’s also golfing and fishing nearby.
This is a great place for families, couples (many weddings are held on the beach) and certainly for ladies with a partner or on their own. Eric regularly crowns one of his guests ‘Queen Bee of the Cove’, providing her with her own beachfront hammock, lunch on the beach and a one-hour massage. I should have stayed longer!
Cedar Cove Resort and Cottages, 2710 Gulf Drive North, Holmes Beach, Florida 34217, www.cedarcoveresort.com, tel: 001 (941) 778 1010. Prices for one bedroom accommodation range from $139 per day ($953 per week) in the autumn/early winter low season to $189 per day ($1299 per week) in the late winter/spring high season.
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