Why the Town Behind America's Best Beach Is Half Empty

My book, The Times You Grew Up With, takes you back: https://paulmcallister.store Siesta Key has the number-one ranked beach in America. The sand is 99% quartz crystal. It stays cool in the middle of July. And behind that beach sits a village where 64% of the housing units are empty. This is the story of how Siesta Key, Florida went from a year-round community of nearly 8,000 people to a place with more houses than residents — and why the people who still live there can’t stop it. It starts with Harry Higel, the man who built the first bridge to the island, named it, and was beaten to death on Beach Road in 1921 in a murder that has never been solved. It runs through the closing of Midnight Pass, the Dr. Beach rankings that put Siesta Key on the national map, and the short-term vacation rental boom that turned neighborhood after neighborhood into rotating sets of Airbnb guests. It reaches a breaking point on October 27, 2021, when the Sarasota County Commission voted to strip residential density limits for hotel development on the barrier islands — a decision one resident, Lourdes Ramirez, fought in court for two years and won. And it arrives at Hurricane Milton, which made landfall directly over Siesta Key on October 9, 2024, and left behind a FEMA rebuilding rule that may price out whoever is left. Siesta Key has no mayor, no town council, no zoning board. It has never had its own government. A bill to incorporate died in a Tallahassee committee in 2023, despite 87% support from residents. The island is governed entirely by Sarasota County — which collects tourist tax on every vacation rental booking. The beach keeps winning awards. The village keeps getting quieter. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Decennial Census (1990, 2000, 2010, 2020) — Siesta Key CDP population and housing data Sarasota County Commission meeting records, October 27, 2021 and October 24, 2023 Twelfth Judicial Circuit Court, Case No. 2021-CA-006696 — Ramirez v. Sarasota County, Judge Hunter W. Carroll ruling, August 21, 2023 Florida House of Representatives, HB 923 (2023) — bill history and committee records National Weather Service, Melbourne FL — Hurricane Milton post-storm summary, October 2024 Sarasota County History Center / Sarasota History Alive — Harry Higel, Siesta Land Company, and early development records