St. Augustine, Florida Weekend Happenings-come enjoy the nation's oldest city.
Another fun-filled weekend is planned for St. Augustine. Click here for more details. Enjoy Theatre, movies, concerts, beach activities, historic events and a cruise.
Theatre
One of my favorite plays, The Foreigner, will be at the Limelight Theatre.
Movies
The premier of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be on the IMAX screen at the World Golf Village Home of Fame.
Beach Activities
At Crescent Beach, the beach just south of St. Augustine Beach, enjoy watching lifeguards compete for King of the Beach.
Meanwhile at St. Augustine Beach there will be sand scultpting classes. There will be a sand sculpting contest on November 7th in honor of St. Augustine's Beach 50th birthday, so you'll want to get all the education you can now!
Historic Weapons Firing Demonstration
View re-enactors at Ft. Matanzas, just 15 miles south of St. Augustine.
Concert
BLAZED AND CONFUSED TOUR featuring Slightly Stoopid & STEPHEN Marley on Sunday at the St. Augustine Amphitheatre.
Cruise
On Sunday enjoy an 1 hr 15minute "Mimosa Sunday" cruise aboard the Victory III.
Barbara Jenness is a Licensed Real Estate Broker serving northeast Florida from Jacksonville to Ponte Vedra and St. Augustine, specializing in waterfront properties (ocean, river, and Intracoastal) and foreclosures. She is an active community volunteer and has been involved with redeveloping Vilano Beach since 1998. She is the current President of Friends of A1A and the Vice-President of North Shores Improvement Association, the governing board of Vilano Beach Main Street. She tries her best to get out and enjoy all the wonderful things St. Augustine has to offer.
VILANO BEACH IN NORTHEAST FLORIDA IS CONFUSING IN SOME OF THE NAMES.
Vilano Beach, the closest beach to downtown historic St. Augustine, has evolved to include many of the neighboring subdivisions.
Porpoise Point is the southern-most subdivision of what is commonly referred to Vilano Beach. Porpoise Point has its own homeowner's association, which is really comprised of a private water plant and an Architectural Control Committee. The Homeowner Association (HOA) dues are really the property owner's water bill. Each property owner pays a different HOA based on his or her previous year's usage. There are different tiers of usage. The bill comes out in July for July - June and can be paid for the year in advance or monthly. The lowest bill is $240/year. The Homeowner's Association is called Homewoner's Utilities, Inc.
The next subdivision is Vilano Beach proper, which is a combination of the commercial district, Vilano Beach Town Center (aka Vilano Beach Main Street), and residential. The Vilano Beach Town Center has a new Town Center Mixed Used District (TCMUD) zoning allowing for commercial on the ground floor and residential or professional offices on the 2nd and 3rd floors. More information on the TCMUD Ordinance can be found here.
Traveling north, the next area you reach is Surfside. Surfside is comprised of single-family homes, some commercial, a couple of low-density condos and a beach side park. There are no covenants and restrictions, which is also true for Pacetti North Beach, better known as North Beach, the next major subdivision north of Surfside.
Just north of North Beach is South Beach, which has never made sense to me. How do you have a subdivision north of area called North Beach and call it South Beach? I guess it is very similar to a subdivision in the northern part of North Beach called Vilano Oaks. Vilano Oaks is a subdivision of 28 single-family homes that technically is not in Vilano and they removed most, if not all, of the oaks to build this subdivision. But as I said in a previous blog, "Vilano" has absorbed much of the neighboring communities from the St. Augustine inlet to Serenata Beach Club in South Ponte Vedra.
There are other subdivisions in the area including Beachwalk on Vilano, legally called Kingston Dunes (also technically not in Vilano), Villages of Vilano (again not technically in Vilano, but who am I to judge?), Mariner's Watch Condos, Seaside of Vilano (condos), Seacrest of Vilano (condos), and some small condo complexes as mentioned earlier. Okay, so let's call it all Vilano! See how confusing this can all be? Please call me when you have a lot of time and I'll walk you through it!
Vilano Beach---Closest Beach to St. Augustine, Florida in northeast Florida.
Vilano Beach's zip code is 32084 which it shares with our nation's oldest city, St. Augustine. However, you can address mail to Vilano Beach with the zip code of 32084 and it will arrive here, just fine. We also have our own post office which is located in a local business.
Cross over the Francis & Mary Usina Bridge (aka Vilano Bridge) just north of the historic district of St. Augustine (by the carousel) and take a right at the traffic light to enter Vilano Beach.
Vilano Beach has come to absorb the neighboring communities. Technically, Vilano Beach is Vilano Road and a few neighboring streets (i.e., Ferrol, Anahma, Corunna, Poplar, Palencia, Loja, Manresa, Jerez Ct., Viejo, Zamora, and part of Coastal Highway) but over time people have come to call the area from the St. Augustine Inlet north to Serenata Beach Club as Vilano Beach.
Below is a map from Google of Vilano Beach:
This area includes Porpoise Point (the deed restricted community along the Intracoastal and St. Augustine Inlet. This map show Vilano Beach plus Porpoise Point:
But really, most people think of Vilano Beach as shown by the map below:
As you can see, Vilano Beach is a very special place bounded on the south by the St. Augustine Inlet, the east by the Atlantic Ocean and the west by the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Vilano Beach enjoys breezes year-round from the different waterways. It is absolutely one of the best fishing areas in Florida and a great place for jet-skiing, parasailing, sailing, windsurfing, surfing, skim boarding and other water activities.
Additionally, Vilano Beach has great restaurants. The Reef Restaurant has oceanfront dining and is voted best brunch in the area. Cap's on the Intracoastal is know near and far because of its great seafood (wonderful oyster bar with great raw bar) and sunsets. Aunt Kate's (too new for website) is Vilano Beach's newest restaurant, also on the Intracoastal just down the road from the Reef Restaurant with great food and sunsets.
The beaches are uncrowded and have many sea turtle nests. Vilano Beach is the local's beach as opposed to St. Augustine Beach which is more for tourists. On Sundays from noon to four p.m. there is a Farmer's Market at the Vilano Pier called the Sunday Market.
More info on Vilano please visit my website as I have been involved in the redevelopment of Vilano Beach since 1998: http://BarbaraJenness.com. I have many links that give more detailed information about the Vilano Beach Town Center.
On July 13th, the state of Florida got serious about our honey. As the fourth leading honey-producing state, Florida beekeepers were seeing what I would call unfair competition from overseas. Honey was being sent to Florida (and other places) with additives and calling the product pure honey.
Five major honey producers and processors approached the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2006 asking for a U.S. standard of identity for honey. The FDA did not take up the cause "due to other more pressing matters".
So, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services stepped in. Under the new regulation, honey containing anything other than the "natural food product resulting from the harvest of nectar by honeybees" is considered an adulterated or mislabeled product.
Florida is the first in our nation and possibly the world to have such a regulation on honey. Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles H. Bronson says 28 others states are now considering it and hopefully the USDA and the FDA will get involved, too. The regulation went into effect on July 14, 2009.
The USDA allows for up to 18.6% of added water to honey for it still be classified as grade A. Honey is one of nature's perfect foods as it does not spoil and you can store it almost indefinitely without additives or preservatives.
If you like honey, rest assured you will get pure honey in Florida.
Read more at: http://bit.ly/Florida_Honey
Barbara Jenness is a Licensed Real Estate Broker serving northeast Florida from Jacksonville to Ponte Vedra and St. Augustine, specializing in waterfront properties (ocean, river, and Intracoastal) and foreclosures. She is an active community volunteer and has been involved with redeveloping Vilano Beach since 1998. She is the current President of Friends of A1A and the Vice-President of North Shores Improvement Association, the governing board of Vilano Beach Main Street. She is also a big fan of honey!
Visit her website: http://BarbaraJenness.com
The Florida State Legislature this year approved across-the-board rate increases for fees charged by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. The new prices take effect September 1, 2009. It was a state decision and the local counties will see no additional revenue. Because the new rates do not take effect until September 1st, anyone who renews their vehicle registration and driver's license before then can pay the lower rates.
You can renew your vehicle registration up to three months in advance. If your registration expires on or before November 30, 2009 you should renew it before the new fees take effect on September 1st. You can save even more money by renewing your registration for two years rather than just one.
Driver's licenses can be renewed up to 18 months in advance. Changes of address can be updated at the lower rate by accessing http://www.flhsmv.gov/dhsmv/express.html before September 1.
Below are some of the hikes:
- License plate renewals: From $28.10 to $46.65.
- Registration fee for new vehicles: From $100 to $225.
- Drivers license: From $32.25 to $54.25.
- Replacement of lost license: From $15.25 to $31.25.
This applies to boat registrations, too. So, enjoy your summer, but you might want to take care of some registrations before the summer's end.
Click here for more detailed fees.
Barbara Jenness is a Licensed Real Estate Broker serving northeast Florida from Jacksonville to Ponte Vedra and St. Augustine, specializing in waterfront properties (ocean, river, and Intracoastal) and foreclosures. She is an active community volunteer and has been involved with redeveloping Vilano Beach since 1998. She is the current President of Friends of A1A and the Vice-President of North Shores Improvement Association, the governing board of Vilano Beach Main Street.
More info at http://BarbaraJenness.com
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As a waterfront specialist (ocean, river & Intracoastal), Barbara Jenness provides real estate services in Northeast Florida from St. Augustine to Jacksonville (Ponte Vedra, Crescent & Vilano Beach).
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