- December 13, 2025
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After Hurricane Helene traveled up the Gulf Coast in September 2024, Manasota Beach Club lost around 10 feet of beachfront.
But that was just the start of the problems for the historic club and lodging property on Manasota Key in Englewood. (Englewood is on the Sarasota-Charlotte County line; Manasota Beach Club is on the Sarasota County side.)
The resort next faced down Hurricane Milton in October 2024.
During that storm, water washed through the property’s clubhouse and office. “The water was just rushing through, and the surf was breaking on what we called the Surf Room, which was an addition my parents had added probably back in the ’60s,” says Sydney “Buffy” Crampton, the second-generation owner of the 65-year-old Manasota Beach Club. “We had four feet of sand in the Surf Room and five feet of sand on the Gulf Terrace.”
The resort lost two of its cottages to the storm, along with another 20 feet of beachfront and the stairs down to the shore.
But despite all of the damage, Crampton never considered giving up.
“It’s a passion,” she says. “The inn business must be in my blood. I just love it.”
Crampton’s parents bought the one-time nudist colony in 1960, renaming it Manasota Beach Club. Her father, Robert Buffum, had been patiently waiting to take over the family-owned Weekapaug Inn in Rhode Island, but his father made him bide his time. So he found a winter resort to complement the family’s summer resort while he waited. (The Buffum family is no longer involved with the Weekapaug Inn.)
The Manasota Key property originally consisted of the clubhouse and a couple of cottages, and the Buffums added on to it over the years. It’s survived previous challenges ranging from a no-name storm in the 1970s to red tide and the pandemic in more recent years. And Crampton is committed to doing what it takes to keep the club going — even if that means stepping out of her comfort zone a little.
That includes things like linking up with a new investment partner, getting the property on the National Register of Historic Places, working with a management company for the first time and offering a new beach access membership program. Crampton has spent more than $1.5 million on hurricane clean up and repairs, she says, with some work paid for by insurance funds. She adds that revenue-generating activities will continue to help fund ongoing restoration.
“I’ve always liked it the way it is,” she says. “I wanted it to be natural and get the guests to come back year after year. … But I just felt like there’s a way that we can preserve it and keep it going and make enough money to cover our costs.”
Before the 2024 storms, a master plan had been created for the Manasota Beach Club to serve as a future blueprint for the property. That was when Crampton’s new silent investment partner came on board. The goal was to use that master plan to seek out additional investments in the property from other entities. But the hurricanes blew that apart.
“So we’ve kind of put the plan aside for the moment, because it involved more cottages and potential zoning changes that I don’t think will go through right now,” says Crampton. “We just want to rebuild what we have and then try to get the guests back.”
Those guests have already started coming back, with 12 units repaired and reopened on the property, down from 22 before the storms. Full kitchens or kitchenettes have been added to some units, a needed amenity since the club’s dining room remains closed after the hurricanes. “A lot of guests came because of the food and because of the convenience of the dining room, and they’re not going to have that this year,” says Crampton.
Food service remains a bit of a question mark for the resort at this point. The kitchen had to be gutted because it was six inches underwater, but some of the equipment survived the storms.
“We were thinking if maybe a restaurateur was interested in coming in, they could help renovate it and design the kitchen the way they want to and be a partner as a lease,” says Crampton. She’s open to talking to anyone interested and would also entertain having food trucks visit the property in the meantime.
The rest of the 1920s-era clubhouse is coming back together, providing a spot for guests to gather and relax. There is a new Gulf-view Surf Deck, and the main beach stairs are in the process of being rebuilt.
The Blue Heron Cottage is also awaiting repairs, which would add two additional lodging units. Increasing capacity is important to accommodate some returning guests, whose multigenerational families would occupy all 22 units in the past. “We need more units,” says Crampton.
One thing working in her favor there? Her brother is renovating the adjoining property and will be renting out its Ibis and Meadowlark Cottages as luxury vacation rentals with access to Manasota Beach Club’s amenities. “If our old guests want to rent his property, we’ll just call him,” she says.
The property’s uniqueness has always been a draw, and is maybe even more so these days when many people are in search of ‘slowcations.’
“There are not very many historic resorts like this along the Gulf anymore,” says John McCarthy, vice president for regional history at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens and one-time historian for Sarasota County. “If you fly into the Sarasota-Bradenton or Fort Myers airports, within an hour you can be in paradise. It’s like going back in time. Once you’re there with the bay and the beach and the Gulf, it’s very peaceful and quaint. And you have access to this wonderful beach where you’re not going to find tons of people out there.”
To help generate additional revenue as the property keeps rebuilding, Manasota Beach Club has begun offering a new beach access membership. Priced at $7,500, the annual membership provides access to more than 300 feet of private beachfront for four household members and their guests, along with parking and access to the club’s pool, decks, grill and picnic area, and accessible kayak launch on Lemon Bay.
Members can also reserve time on the tennis court and join in water aerobics classes. Former members of Manasota Beach Club are being given first access to the new membership, but Crampton recognizes that the lack of a dining room could be a challenge.
“I’d say 75% to 80% of them were in it for the dining,” she says. “So now we don’t have the dining, and they also have their clubhouses inland, with their tennis, water aerobics, and all that. But the beach is something that even some of the people who live on the key on the bay side might want access to.”
Once past members have had their chance, the new beach access membership will open to the general public. Crampton plans to keep the memberships limited to preserve the natural beauty and serenity of the property.
Before the pandemic and the hurricanes, Manasota Beach Club had good repeat business, guests and members who came year after year to enjoy the Old Florida feeling of the property. But as some of those past guests and members keep getting older, and others want to wait for the dining room to return or additional units to come online, Crampton needed to consider some new approaches.
That includes a new arrangement with Sarasota-based property management company Vaaraway, which will market Manasota Beach Club on sites like Vrbo, Airbnb, and Booking.com plus its own direct booking website (vaaraway.com) and handle guests from inquiry to booking to handover to the client. Vaaraway will also help optimize listings for Manasota Beach Club, ensure pricing is aligned with market trends, and follow up on guest reviews.
“I had never wanted to open the club up to the platforms, because I just didn’t feel like we had enough staff and we also had enough guests returning,” says Crampton. “But we’re thinking that by going out onto the platforms, they can fill it up better than we could.”
For Vaaraway, Crampton and Manasota Beach Club are just the kind of partner the company wants. “It’s about finding the right owner before finding the right property,” says Matthew Farhat, director of strategic growth and development for Vaaraway. “The really strong thing about Manasota Beach Club has been what they provide to the guest while there —their attentiveness, their genuineness, their knowledge of that area. They are an expert on their property and their guests, but they’re not experts on the market data, on booking trends, on exposure. We’re able to help get more eyeballs to view this property. It’s just opening up that top-end funnel for them.”
Vaaraway, essentially, is tasked with making sure Manasota Beach Club’s story is told — often. It’s a strategy McCarthy says is sound.
“I think that what makes it unique and what makes it worth preserving and what makes it attractive for people to come and enjoy is it’s such a rare type of a resort,” says McCarthy. “It’s the kind of place where you drive to it and just stay there and indulge in really being kind of disconnected. There’s no better place to get unplugged than Manasota Beach Club.”
