provided to The Santiva Chronicle
What draws a college graduate in bacteriology to the hospitality business? Maybe it’s how both efforts focus on the basics of a thriving life.
Tony Lapi has been doing just that on Sanibel and Captiva for half a century. As the owner of Tween Waters Inn & Marina on Captiva, he sees how thriving lives among customers and employees create positive outcomes for the islands—and that Community Housing & Resources plays a key role in this.
Tony came to the islands a few years after earning his science degree from Syracuse University. In 1976, he and several partners bought a gorgeous piece of property on Captiva between the Gulf and Pine Island Sound. Tween Waters sprang from there.
Today, it features 137 units, a marina, and numerous amenities for tourists. Tony and the team later established two other resorts, Beachview Cottages and Castaways Beach to Bay. Hard-working, dedicated employees who lived close by helped meet the growing tourism demand, Tony explained.
“Years ago, I used to have housing for employees. But property costs got so high that we could no longer house employees. That certainly made a difference in our operation where we had to rely on people to commute,” he said.
CHR’s quality, affordable housing has made it much easier for people to live and work on the island—even as CHR, like Tony’s resorts, had to rebuild after Hurricane Ian. In fact, Tween Waters made a three-year, $50,000 commitment to support CHR and the thriving lives it fosters.