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As a young girl growing up in South Florida, I remember how excited I was when my father told me that a resort was being built on Marco Island. I really didn't know what a resort was, but the fact that a beautiful hotel was being built on an island meant that I could play on the beach and swim in a pool. Unfortunately, in the mid-1960s when the hotel was built, only the affluent could afford to vacation on Marco Island. Ironically, it wasn't until the late 1970s, when I went to work for Robert F. Mackle, Sr. that I would finally have a chance to visit Marco Island.

Marco Island has an interesting history. From about 4000 B.C. to the mid-1700s, the only inhabitants on the island were the Calusa Indians, who were seven feet tall and thought to be descendants of the Mayans. Disease brought by the Spaniards wiped out their entire population, and the island later became home to the Seminoles. In 1922, Barron G. Collier purchased most of the land but the Depression kept him from developing it. At that time, the inhabitants of the island totaled less than 600, undoubtedly because the only way to get to the island from the mainland was by crossing a hand-operated swinging bridge that was made of wood and very narrow, and I'm sure very scary.

In 1962, three Mackle brothers - Robert, Elliott, and Frank, Jr. - envisioned the potential of the 6,800-acre island because of its ideal location at the southwestern tip of Florida, not to mention its calm, azure Gulf waters, quartz sand beaches, pine trees, mangroves, and swaying palms. They purchased most of the land from the Collier Estate for a mere $7 million and immediately started developing the largest of Florida's 10,000 islands into one of the premier residential and tourist areas in Southwest Florida. Today, the island boasts over 15,000 residents, which more than doubles during the winter season.

Once you drive across either of the two bridges from mainland Florida to Marco Island, you'll first notice how little traffic there is. The roads are wide and clean and curve through upscale neighborhoods of estate homes and high-rise condos, which are mostly located at the south end of the island. At the southeast end is an area known as Indian Hills where estates are built atop Calusa Indian mounds made of layers of shells that rise forty feet high and date over a thousand years old; and at Caxambas Pass you will find two cool artisan springs where early inhabitants would go to get fresh water.

On the north end of the island,

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