By late May, the winter guests in PV had nearly all departed for home. Some were heading back to Winnetka, Darien and Sharon. Others would enjoy their summer weather in St. Louis, Newport, Boston and Boothbay. In the 1970s, as with every other decade since 1928, their absence signaled the arrival of a fresh wave of guests to Ponte Vedra Beach.
PV/PV Elementary had not yet been let out, but the last day of school was right around the corner. Without any central AC, the classrooms were hot. Teachers would open the windows and prop open the doors in hopes of finding a cross breeze. Mr. McLatchey would turn off the lights in his classroom to try to maintain at least the appearance of lower temperatures. He would teach about the Dark Ages. Our summer break would be our Renaissance.
The annual school-wide Spring Fling had been held in April, and it had set the tone for all the students by bringing the outdoors indoors. All the grades were feeling the pull of recess and having difficulty paying attention. Summer was beginning and PV was getting ready.
Activities at the Club began increasing in May with more member parties, new faces, refurbished fairways, greener greens, new courts and the pool areas being freshly painted. Everything of consequence had been addressed and awaiting members. On the beach, more footprints could be seen in the sand in the mornings and late evenings. Traffic was noticeably heavier north of the Duval County line. DeLeon Shores had not yet been built out. Sawgrass itself had been fleshed out but not finished. The Inn had a fresh portico. The Racquet Club was expanding, and rumors began circulating that the Post Office would be moving from its historic spot across from the Surf Club. The store anchoring the building there would eventually close.
All this, however, was back-of-house; housekeeping, if you will. It was the necessary this-and-that’s of maintaining a premier resort and community of excellence in a fresh decade of opportunity while emphasizing continuity over rupture.
With new guests and visitors arriving, full-time residents relied on experience to gauge the small percentage of new faces who exhibited a certain eagerness that the community tolerated but many hoped wouldn’t take root. This is how it was done at the time.
Folks would arrive in PV one of two ways: guns-a-blazing or quiet-as-a-mouse. The former brought with them a distinct energy that some found exciting and exhilarating, while others dreaded its presence. The gulf between the two divided the community. The guns-a-blazers came for revelry. They enjoyed the thrill of the chase, the run for the money, the competition, the parties and the Boulevard experience. These types were climbers. They were the ones wanting to squeeze as much out of PV as they possibly could in the shortest amount of time and leave behind a discarded rind.
The quiet ones, on the other hand, the older affluent, were in Ponte Vedra for something else entirely. These members, guests and visitors discerned PV beneath the surface and recognized its charm as a facilitator of leisure that preserved customs that had been held in place by tradition since the very beginning. These traditions were offered as a service, an amenity; and this community portrait defined PV in the 1970s.
“Why’d you move so far, so fast, so fierce? It’s just a career,” Morrissey sings in “Kerching Kerching,” on his newest album. The words find their mark along the Boulevard.
The guns-a-blazers would always arrive shadowed by something the full-time residents knew all too well. It wasn’t the morning bloody marys, the mid-morning planter’s punch, the wine with lunch, the gin and tonics at 3, the scotch at 6, and the brandy at 8; it was their inability to settle into a routine of relaxation that was at the very heart of the PV experience. Guns-a-blazers were unable to recognize the extraordinary luxury in the absolute ordinary. Many couldn’t describe what they were chasing. It wasn’t leisure, or business, or hospitality, or recreation. Locals recognized it immediately. The noonday devil had them by the ankle.
Acedia is a condition of the soul. It’s a restlessness. It’s an inability to embrace slowing down. The effects become a type of nemesis that the Ponte Vedra experience has campaigned against since the community’s inception. Combating acedia is only possible by reframing the perception of “doing nothing” as an intentional form of art. If nothing else it is permission to slow down, and this resonates with the human soul.
Sit on the beach. Look out at the horizon. Close your eyes. Where are you? The answer matters more than you know.
In the 1970s, The Club and Ponte Vedra proper elevated simple everyday activities into luxurious, meaningful moments that felt purposeful rather than wasteful. Walk on the beach. “I found a fossil.” Now another, and another. Now it’s a collection. That tradition continues today. It’s part of the community’s cultural heritage.
Slow luxury and wellness arise from balanced leisure. Morning activities, afternoon rest, an entertaining evening and nightly rejuvenation. The timetable follows the tides in PV. Some visitors arrive and roll up their driveways, and that’s OK, but this can be done anywhere. Ponte Vedra Style is not about isolation and exclusivity. It’s about community.
PV has always championed organizations of merit and supported volunteerism. Community involvement in the ’70s would take the form of a wide spectrum of participation, with some taking on more than others, but efforts were never forced upon anyone and there was always room for newcomers. “We all have different parts to play and we should all be allowed to play them.” This reshapes the conversation about what’s to be done and why it needs doing.
Today, the community Spirit of ’76 is alive in the hospitality that has spread enrichment in ways that only a few could have imagined when we all celebrated the Bicentennial. PV proper now facilitates a place-based regional leisure economy rooted in tradition and grit. Ponte Vedra Beach is the definition of a lifestyle of service and provides shelter from that day-to-day battle with the nemesis of all people of good will everywhere, the noonday devil, in this smartly casual place of all places, Ponte Vedra Beach.
