Naples Guide magazine set to turn 50

"Hundreds of magazines have come and gone and the Naples Guide goes on," Doris Reynolds, founder of the magazine, said from her Old Naples apartment last week.

Since 1953, the 5-inch by 8-inch publication has been the arts and entertainment magazine that visitors and new residents pick up on newsstands around town, from Fifth Avenue South to hotels to real estate offices. The free publication circulates more than 30,000 copies in season and 15,000 during the summer.

The public is invited to celebrate the Naples Guide's 50th anniversary from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday at the Naples Depot, 1051 Fifth Ave. S. Reynolds will be giving a talk and signing her books, "Let's Talk Food" and "When Peacocks Were Roasted and Mullet Was Fried."

"It's a wonderful resource and one of our oldest and most trusted magazines," said Samantha Todd, vice president of hospitality services for The Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce.

Alyce Mathias, the current publisher of the Naples Guide, said that although she has modified the magazine in the nine years that she has owned it, she has been careful not to change it too much.

"I've tried to keep it in the same character it's always been in," she said.

However, Mathias has made the magazine more than a visitors guide, adding features such as the "behind the scenes" look at a person or event.

In the future, she wants the magazine to publish information on sports and even devote full issues to topics such as golfing, tennis and boating.

Mathias publishes Naples Guide in addition to running her design business, Studio Graphics. She said she puts in a lot of hours.

"I'm here on the weekends," she said.

Still, Mathias wants to create more magazines -- guides for Bonita Springs, Marco Island, Fort Myers and Sarasota. She hopes Bonita Springs Guide will be in print within a year.

Mathias said she looks up to Reynolds for her accomplishments.

"I just admire her," she said. "I can't imagine a woman in 1953 starting a magazine when Naples was in its infancy."

In 1952, Reynolds, along with 18 men, applied for a position to be the next executive vice president and general manager of the Naples Chamber of Commerce. Willing to work for $65 a week, Reynolds got the job.

As a single mother, the money wasn't enough. She also noticed the chamber didn't have any brochures or printed material, so she suggested she start a publication that would include information for tourists and investors. It became the area's first guide book and an official chamber publication.

Besides writing and producing Naples Guide, Reynolds was still focused on doing what they hired her for: selling chamber memberships. There was $1,200 in the bank when she started, and $15,000 when she celebrated her one-year anniversary.

The publication has changed with the times, she said. She said she sold Naples Guide in the 1980s when it "just wasn't fun anymore" and never regretted it.

Since then, Reynolds has written for the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Miami Herald, for which she wrote a weekly column for 12 years. She now writes a weekly food column for the Naples Daily News.

Reynolds still picks up Naples Guide, which she says still proves itself a magazine in demand.

"I think the current publication has done a good job, especially in the face of terrific competition," she said.