New York Times - Siesta Key, the Jewel of Sarasota

Siesta Key, the Jewel of Sarasota.

This eight-mile-long island has always been a major draw for tourists coming to this area.

Here are excerpts of an article published in The New York Times on September 4, 2009, which explain best what is so special on visiting – and living – on Siesta Key:

If They Gave Awards for Sand ... Well, They Do

Siesta Key, an eight-mile-long, crescent-shaped barrier island on the Gulf Coast south of Sarasota, is becoming more popular in hotter months as tourists discover its powdered-sugar white sand that seems always to stay cool, no matter how high the heat outside. Other enticements include cool gulf breezes; clear, temperate, turquoise water; and huge discounts on accommodations from July through September at luxury high-rises, cozy cottages and funky beachfront bungalows.

Summer seems to lure mainly Midwesterners and Europeans to Siesta Key, said Dale Nelson, a volunteer with the Siesta Key Chamber of Commerce, while winter is the province of Northeastern and Canadian snowbirds.

This year Stephen Leatherman, known as Dr. Beach and director of the university’s Laboratory for Coastal Research, named Siesta Key’s beach as the second-best in the nation. (Hanalei Bay on Kauai, Hawaii, was first.)

“I use 50 criteria to rate every beach, and in terms of sand alone Siesta Key is definitely the best in the world,” Dr. Leatherman said. Science backs up the hyperbole: Siesta Key’s beach is 99 percent quartz, which stays consistently cool and silky.

Actually, Dr. Leatherman said, quartz grains deposited from the southern Appalachians over millennia settled in a protected pocket around Siesta Key. “Other beaches have a mix of all kinds of minerals that make the texture coarser and the color darker, but Siesta Key is all refined quartz,” he said. “It’s cushy and squeaky and absolutely dazzling.”

The island has a population of 9,581, which almost doubles in winter, according to the 2000 census.

The village has just undergone a multimillion-dollar makeover. Utility wires have been buried; concrete sidewalks were replaced with wider brick walkways, 16 new brick crosswalks have been laid; elegant lamplights, benches and a gazebo have been installed; and flowering, fragrant landscaping and black olive shade trees were planted along its main street, Ocean Boulevard.