May 15, 2013 ––The community of Seaside, Fla., has been successful in creating a popular guest experience loved by many. In order to continue to offer a positive experience for Seaside visitors and to provide a simple process for coming and going in Seaside, the town will implement an easily accessible summer parking option for guests.

For convenience, PM Valet will park Seaside customers’ vehicles for them. Visitors will be able to drive into Central Square and park on their own or have someone park their car immediately, rather than search for a parking space during heavy traffic times. The valet service option will allow visitors to spend less time parking when wanting to dine or shop during peak times.

A valet podium will be centrally located in front of the ATM Kiosk in Central Square near Opus and Sundog Books. Visitors choosing to use the valet service will receive two hours COMPLIMENTARY with a validated ticket and a merchant receipt. With no validation, the fee is only $5.00 per vehicle for the first two hours and $5.00 every two hours thereafter.

Valet services will be offered on the following dates:
• Memorial Day, May 24-27, and 4th of July week, July 4-7
• Each Wednesday in June, July and the first two Wednesdays in August
• Each weekend in June and July (Friday-Sunday) and the first two weekends in August

Valet services will operate at the following times:
• Wednesday-Thursday, 8 a.m. – 11 p.m.
• Friday-Sunday, 8 a.m. – Midnight
• Holidays, 8 a.m. – Midnight

Seaside will also offer extended seasonal hours, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. for dining and shopping beginning Memorial Day weekend through August 15.

Seaside’s aim is to provide an inviting experience for our Seaside “regulars,” local visitors and out-of-town guests. We want to allow as many as possible to continue to enjoy the rich traditions, simplicity and availability for which the Seaside community has become known.

Seaside Neighborhood School in Northwest Florida Daily News

By DEBORAH WHEELER / Walton Sun

Published: Saturday, February 2, 2013 at 15:52 PM.

SEASIDE — Seaside Neighborhood School got some more good news recently.

During a school assembly, Seaside founders Robert and Daryl Davis ceremoniously handed over the deed for the Seaside Neighborhood School Founders Building to Seaside Foundation President Rick Helfand. The Founders Building was the last of three school buildings that was not owned by the foundation.

Seaside Neighborhood School had been renting the building from the Davises for about $75,000 a year.

Helfand approached Robert Davis last year with a proposal to buy the building. Davis eventually decided to donate it to the foundation instead.

“It made sense for us tax-wise to donate instead of sell,” Davis said.

The school’s main building was paid for with fees the Davises collected from allowing “The Truman Show” to be filmed at Seaside in the mid-1990s. The school opened in 1996 as one of Florida’s first charter schools.

During the ceremony, the Davises were heralded as the visionaries of Seaside and the school, which started with 35 children in house trailers. Today, 133 students attend and are selected by a lottery.

The Davises donated the land for all three buildings.

Davis said he discussing whether he can donate land for Seaside Neighborhood School to have a high school.

“There is the possibility of donating the Lyceum and land for more school buildings,” he said. “But it is still in talks. The idea for Seaside Neighborhood School depends on students being engaged in the community and its cultural activities. We are talking to see if it can be worked out.”

The building donation follows news that Seaside School will add high school and elementary school grades. The school now serves grades six through nine.

The school will offer grades nine and 10 this fall at Northwest Florida State College’s South Walton campus. Plans call for adding an 11th grade in 2014 and a 12th grade in 2015.

An elementary school is scheduled to open at Alys Beach in 2014.

Contact Walton Sun Staff Writer Deborah Wheelter at 850-654-8443 or dwheeler@waltonsunonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @WaltonSunDeb.

No stranger to the area, Townsend was tennis director at Seaside from 2000-2006. While in Seaside, he staged a Wimbledon-style event featuring former world No. 1 player Jim Courier. Seaside’s croquet lawn was transformed into a grass court where spectators packed the grandstands for exhibition play between Townsend and Courier.

A seasoned professional in resort tennis, Townsend also served as head pro at WaterColor Resort on behalf of Noble House. After a stint at Ansley Golf Club in Atlanta, Townsend returned to the South Walton County area to form his own tennis management company, 30A Tennis, providing tennis services to the resort communities along Highway 30A including WaterColor and Alys Beach.

At Seaside Tennis, Townsend and his staff of certified teaching professionals offer a robust tennis program with group and private instruction for all ages and abilities. The signature event is the Eye Opener Clinic, held at 8 a.m. daily, year-round. All players are welcome and no reservations are required.

Along with Townsend’s return to Seaside are new tennis facility upgrades: All hard courts have been replaced with Har Tru Hydrocourts; a programmable Playmate ball machine has been installed; the pro shop has been remodeled and remerchandised and there are new nets, lines and maintenance equipment.

Though players come to Seaside for its state-of-the-art facility and expert instruction, they also participate because of the tennis community. Townsend says he works hard to ensure that players become a part of the Seaside Tennis family, encouraging them along the way with tennis friends, both old and new. Townsend’s formula for success is simple: “Players develop skills, receive a good workout, and go home happy,” he said, “planning the next time they’ll be back on the courts.”

About Seaside Tennis: Featuring six Har Tru HydroCourts and a full service Pro Shop, Seaside Tennis offers instruction, court rentals, group packages and custom events for members and guests. For more information, please call 850.231.2214, email tennis@seasidefl.com or find Seaside Tennis on Facebook.

Travel & Leisure conducted its first ever 2012 Best Beaches survey online.

Seaside was listed among a wide variety of U.S. and overseas beaches. T & L asked people to vote on their favorite beaches in specific categories.

The results have been tallied and Seaside was named the Best Beach for Families by Travel & Leisure readers: http://images.burrellesluce.com/image/3856AA/3856AA_363

What a great honor!

Thank you to everyone who voted!!!

The results are published in the printed edition of the January issue of Travel and Leisure, appearing on pages 64-65.

http://www.waltonsun.com/news/the-storied-history-of-seaside-davises-talk-about-building-a-town-together-1.41628

VIE_SEP12_Davis_Home_Final

by Ainsley Rogers, VIE Magazine
Photography by Romona Robbins

Thirty years ago, Robert and Daryl Davis envisioned
an all-American town like none before it. The vision
was that of a main-street community where residents
would live and work together. Where a walkable
downtown would connect the local bookstore with
restaurants and the charter school with ice cream
shops. A community where the American flag stood
at its epicenter next to a one-room post office with
cherry red doors, and where the homes were close
enough together that neighbors could chat with each
other from their porches over morning coffee.
Hailed as the first New Urbanist community in this
country, Seaside, Florida, spans more than eighty
acres and is home to forty-one retail shops, numerous
art galleries, a playhouse, and more than twelve
eateries ranging from gourmet restaurants to hip
Airstream trailer food vendors.

Modica Market, the quaint family-owned grocery
where clerks are likely to greet customers on a firstname
basis, offers everything from beach food to go
to a Corona complete with a lime wedge while you
shop. Or venture over to Perspicacity to shop in an
open-air bazaar-style setting for beach necessities and
unique finds. The narrow, brick-laid streets, named
after such Southern towns as Tupelo and Savannah,
are sprinkled with cyclists and leisurely walkers long
past sundown. Charming signs placed on uniquely
stylized picket fences announce quirky names to
curious cottages: The Villa Whimsy, Absolute Bliss,
and Just in Thyme, to name a few. It’s no wonder
Hollywood chose Seaside as the setting of the 1998
blockbuster movie The Truman Show starring Jim
Carrey—and not surprising, many local community
members and shopkeepers appeared in the film
because of their authentic, all-American appeal. It is,
without a doubt, one of the most desired vacation
destinations for families from across the nation who
are looking to revisit a time when the simpler things
in life prevailed.

A short stroll down Seaside’s main avenue will soon put one in front of the white
picket fence of 115 Seaside Avenue, the original home of founders Robert and
Daryl Davis. Built in 1987, it was the first house built on the street; there were
no more than sixty homes in the Seaside community at the time, a far cry from
the more than three hundred that now populate its quaint streets. The founding
family lived in the home from 1988 to 2001 before building another house on
Seaside’s Gulf-side of Highway 30A, where they now spend their time when in
town. Located in the heart of the community, the Seaside Avenue home is ideal
for encouraging the New Urbanist live-work-play theory on which Robert Davis
based his vision for Seaside.

“Seaside is compact enough that everything you need on a daily basis is within an
easy walk. So you can live on Seaside Avenue and walk to work, to shop, to play,
to go to church, and so on,” says Daryl Davis. “Of course, the Avenue house is big
enough that we could have home offices, and Micah [the Davises’ son] and his
friends could play in the house when they weren’t outside exploring their world.
But a live-work community allows for occupants of smaller houses to use the
plaza or the café as their living room, the community park as their playground,
and offices above stores as their workplace.”

Though Robert was the original architect of the home, the inspiration was a
house designed by famous British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. Because of his
appreciation for fine architecture and design, Robert has been known to invite the
occasional architecture student or professor to study the Seaside Avenue home. Used
now to house visiting artists, scholars, and VIPs (including Léon Krier and Dhiru
Thadani), the Seaside Avenue home also plays host to lectures, charity dinners, and
the annual Seaside Prize Dinner held each January. Its role as Seaside’s premier
entertaining home is apparent in its design and layout. The home is beautiful in its
unique architectural design, clean lines, and elegant, chic decor from Seaside’s Pizitz
Home and Cottage (theseasidestyle.com/pizitz-home-cottage).

Randall Pye with his boys. Davis is on the left and his brother, Brayden, is on the right.

By Deborah Wheeler, The Walton Sun

(August 3, 2012)

The town of Seaside has inspired many architects and town planners through the years. And now, the town is inspiring the naming of children.

Randall and Crystal Pye married in Destin in September 2006 and then honeymooned at Seaside. That was the couple’s first visit to the town made famous in the movie “The Truman Show,” but they weren’t disappointed in their decision to book the stay sight unseen.

“A roommate from college had been there and talked about it all the time and we thought we would try it,” she said. “We were glad we did.”

The couple fell in love with the quaint little town and cherished the memories that were made there.

The next year, their first son was born, which eliminated any vacation plans, and later, the oil spill came along, which kept them away again.

But when the couple learned they were expecting another son, they wanted a special name for him and tried to think of places they had been that were meaningful to them. Naturally, Seaside came to mind.

Crystal began researching Seaside and learned about the town’s founders, Robert and Daryl Davis, and their dream for the town.

When the Pye’s second son was born, they named him Davis for the Seaside founders.

The Pyes returned to Seaside for the first time since their honeymoon this year and introduced Davis to the town. He turned 1 year old while there, on June 16.

While in Seaside, Crystal inquired about the Davises and was told they were not in town. However, the Davises were told about the little boy and Crystal received an email from Daryl saying they were honored.

“I was disappointed that I didn’t get to meet him,” said Crystal of Robert Davis. “Maybe next summer. I would love to meet him. As an interior decorator, I am impressed with what he has done. I would love for him to be our architect. I loved the town’s laidback atmosphere, the way the community made me feel, and the nostalgia. We had the best time of our lives on those two days we spent there on our honeymoon. It was paradise.”

Robert Davis told The Sun that he considers the naming a “very touching gesture.”

“Seaside has always been about creating memories for children,” he said. “I would love to meet the child.”

The Pyes plan to try to return to Seaside every year around little Davis’s birthday.

“Driving everywhere for everything wastes time and energy.  Strolling through the regional mall is a poor substitute for being able to walk for most of our daily needs and encounter our friends and neighbors along the way.  Civility and civilization are at risk in an auto dependent culture.  I am proud of the role Seaside played in reviving the idea that we can live, work and play in humane and urbane places,” said Town Founder, Robert Davis.

Since the early eighties, the Seaside model and the New Urbanist movement (which started a decade after Seaside began) have had a significant influence in bringing walkable downtowns back into style.   According to a recent study by the Demand Institute, today’s development growth now is centered in cities and towns that offer a mix of uses, within easy walking distance.  New Urbanist towns have now popped up across America with popularity increasing with rising gas prices and commute times.

Robert and Daryl Davis, Seaside’s Town Founders, started with two modest houses and a small pavilion by a rural beach in Northwest Florida along with an inspired town code by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater Zyberk.  Today, Seaside has grown to more than 300 homes, 12 restaurants and eateries and 41 shops and galleries.   Florida Highway 30 A, the beachside road on which Seaside sits, is full of small towns, many following in Seaside’s New Urbanist footsteps.

Another concept gleaned from Seaside is the value of patient investing by developers.  “Through developing Seaside, we learned the value of staying power, building in small increments and minimizing the scale of risk,” said Davis.  “We have also learned that the key to sustaining traditional urbanism is to grow the community so that it can support more interesting activities like theater and other cultural attractions.  While selling real estate keeps the doors open, the longer a developer can hold onto the downtown commercial district, the better off he or she is going to be.”

Davis still owns much of the commercial district in Seaside and he maintained ownership of most of Seaside’s beachfront through the late 1990s.  “The fact that we had held this property for so long meant that the beachfront lots had increased in value as Seaside grew and evolved into an interesting and desirable community.  We did much better overall than if we had sold the land earlier. The assumption that the net present value of the investment is better by accelerating cash flow is  not necessarily correct, particularly if  the  development strategy makes the investment continually grow in value,” said Davis.

About Seaside

Seaside, built on 80 acres on Florida’s Gulf Coast, has been acclaimed world-wide as one of the iconic examples of New Urbanism.  According to Newsweek, “Seaside—with its cozy, narrow streets, its jumble of pastel colored homes—is probably the most influential resort community since Versailles.”  Seaside is located between Panama City and Destin and consists of over 300 homes, many of them vacation rentals, more than 12 restaurants and eateries, and 41 shops and galleries.  For more information, visit www.seasidefl.com or call 850-231-6106.

Transforming Seaside into a great food destination has been the result of a four-year project overseen by nationally-known restaurant consultant Clark Wolf.  Town Founder Robert Davis brought Wolf to the Seaside table to work with each restaurant in Seaside to enrich their individual offerings.

“Home owners and visitors will find that the effort has paid off.  The Seaside restaurant and food scene is evolving, and the town now offers an amazing collection of casual and delicious options,” said Wolf.  “By focusing more clearly, sometimes using higher quality or more local and seasonal ingredients to produce better, more appealing food, the restaurants are seeing a real increase in business.“

An example of beach food perfected, The Shrimp Shack serves gulf shrimp, straight off the boat and oysters, tagged for purity, right from oystermen they know personally.  Guests can walk behind the restaurant to a white, open air pavilion on the Gulf of Mexico to feast on very fresh deep water Royal Red shrimp, steamed just right, a Florida Lobster Roll and a lot more.

Bud & Alley’s is Seaside’s longest standing landmark restaurant and offers what are considered to be the best crab cakes in the region.   One of the few rooftop beachside bars in the area, visitors and residents alike enjoy the upstairs bar and participate in the daily ritual of the big bell being rung at sunset. Every year the restaurant works to tweak the menu, upgrade their methods and please people even more.

Visitors can also experience traditional Southern fare, including oysters and fresh grilled fish, at The Great Southern.  The restaurant’s porch also serves as a community-gathering place. Other not-to-miss dishes include the arepas at Amavida Café, the chocolate filled figs and their coffee—considered the best in the panhandle by Seaside Founder, Robert Davis.   There are currently more than 12 restaurants and eateries at Seaside.

“We worked with each restaurant to make sure the food they were serving was raised to a higher level,” Davis said. “The results thus far have been quite good.”

There’s great food in the private homes at Seaside, as well, made with ingredients from Modica Market, the multi-generational, traditional European family specialty market at Seaside.  Modica Market is the heart of Seaside.  It is the place where people gather to see who is in town, catch up on gossip and find lost children.

The Saturday Farmer’s Market enables residents and visitors to purchase beautiful, fresh local produce, including honey, chicken, eggs and cheeses.  Guests and residents can do their weekly shopping by walking to the Seaside Farmer’s market and Modica, as opposed to having to get in their car to drive to nearby towns, as was done in years past.

About Seaside

Seaside, built on 80 acres on Florida’s Gulf Coast, has been acclaimed world-wide as one of the iconic examples of New Urbanism.  According to Newsweek, “Seaside—with its cozy, narrow streets, its jumble of pastel colored homes—is probably the most influential resort community since Versailles.”  Seaside is located between Panama City and Destin and consists of over 300 homes, many of them vacation rentals, more than 12 restaurants and eateries, and 41 shops and galleries.  For more information, visit www.seasidefl.com or call 850-231-6106.