Island hideaway

Its formal name is the Key Island Estate and its doors are now open to the public for weddings, corporate events and retreats.

The estate -- with a main house covering 6,000 square feet -- is on the southern end of Keewaydin Island, an eight-mile-long stretch of beach three miles south of Naples. The only way to get there is by boat.

"We can give people a ride out there. Some guests will have their own boat, which is great," said Stacey Kanzler, a Chicago resident who owns the estate.

The home can accommodate more than 100 guests for events and can sleep up to 12 people overnight. It's available for daily rental, as well as extended stays. Rates range from $1,000 to $2,000 a night, depending on the season and whether its a weekday or weekend.

Kanzler purchased the home about three years ago from "a friend of a friend." She's invested more than a $100,000 in it to make it more attractive to lovebirds, vacationers and corporate types.

Kanzler has added landscaping, including 30-foot palm trees that give the estate even more of a tropical feel. She's also put in new furnishings.

"The previous owner was a bachelor at the time (I purchased the home)," Kanzler said. "The house really didn't have a woman's touch."

Recently, she added some Seminole Indian artwork to the home, including a handmade dugout canoe. She plans to put in more.

"It was theirs before it was ours," she said, referring to the Indians and land beneath the estate. "So it belongs to them."

The Indian artwork seems fitting for another reason. In some Indian languages, Keewaydin means northwest wind, or home wind. The word is taken from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The island offers a "Swiss Family Robinson" type get away. There is no access to running water or power lines on Keewaydin. There also aren't any phones on the island.

Still, there's nothing rugged about staying at Key Island Estate. Electricity is provided by a diesel generator. A well supplies water and there are other modern conveniences, such as satellite TV, air conditioning and even a heater for those rare cold nights in Southwest Florida.

Built in 1996, the Key Island Estate rises three stories above the island. It's a stilt home made of wood and accented by a tin roof. There are five bedrooms, including a master bedroom suite, and four bathrooms.

Some of the amenities include a large screen TV, a restaurant-sized kitchen and game tables. There's also a caretaker on premises who can answer questions 24 hours a day.

The estate has a 2,300-square-foot screened porch. It's surrounded by 30 acres of wilderness, giving guests the illusion that they are on their own private island.

Kanzler said when she discovered the previous owner might be willing to sell the estate she jumped at the opportunity to buy it. She thought it would make an ideal second home for her and her husband.

"We had a second home on Marco Island at the time and I just kind of wanted to get off Marco Island," she said. "It was kind of noisy, with lots of traffic, and I was willing to sacrifice having a boat-accessible-only home for the peace and quiet."

The couple still stays at the home whenever they get the chance. They decided to rent it out after realizing there was a big demand for a special location to hold events, such as corporate meetings, and to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and weddings.

Kanzler and her husband discovered Southwest Florida more than six years ago after a friend invited him on a fishing trip to Marco Island.

Though Kanzler hasn't done much advertising, people are finding out the home is available and they're booking it.

One man recently rented it out as a surprise for his wife to celebrate their 29th wedding anniversary. A few months ago, a woman surprised her husband by renting the home for his 50th birthday.

In May, Monet Giblin, a local high school graduate, had her wedding reception at the estate after marrying Thomas Layton at St. Ann Catholic Church in Naples.

"Everyone came out by boat," said Claudia Horak of Creative Weddings and Events in Fort Myers, who planned the event. "There was a buffet and lots of dancing."

The couple had their first dance at sunset on the beach. Guests played pool and ping pong in between dancing and eating, Horak said.

She said the estate offers something that's hard to find anywhere else in Southwest Florida.

"There are very few places that offer the room that this has," she said. "At a lot of private homes the parking is a big problem. Obviously, here we don't have parking problems."

If Kanzler's idea to rent the estate works as well as her last brainstorm, it could be a huge success.

During the Mississippi River floods in 1993, Kanzler invented a machine to fill sand bags. It's now used in flood-prone areas across the country -- and in other parts of the world. She said it fills the sand bag 40 times faster than can be done by hand.

Kanzler said she can see the day when it will be difficult to find an open date at Key Island Estate. She plans to move here permanently in a few years, and she's prepared to look for another home to live in.

"That would be OK with me," she said. "I can find some place else to live and travel back and forth to the estate when it's not in use."