Marco Photos

Postcard courtesy Nina Webber / Original photograph by Marjorie Lenk

Shuffleboard action — Local postcards to family and friends back home used to feature life's simpler pleasures. This undated souvenir shows shuffleboard action at the former Keewaydin Club, south of Naples' Port Royal and Gordon Pass. It was a winter retreat for the low-key rich and famous from 1935 to 1995; now it is an enclave of luxury mega-homes, still accessible only by boat. A 1995 Daily News story said: "The name Keewaydin was taken from 'Song of Hiawatha,' a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Indian word means northwest or homeward-bound wind, according to a short history of the club prepared in 1992 for the Collier County Historical Society. "The concept for the Keewaydin clubs was initiated in 1893, beginning a network of summer camps that reached their peak in the 1930s. "A lawyer named Chestman Kittridge convinced the original Keewaydin Camp in Ontario to expand its reach to Southwest Florida. He envisioned the Keewaydin Club in Naples as a resort where parents could bring their children for a respite from the harsh northern winters. He started in 1935 with a lodge and two cottages and established a school for the children of island vacationers."