Bright Future for Marco Yacht Club

Marco Island Yacht Club has embarked on a dramatic overhaul of its facilities, staffing, operations, and community outreach in a bid to become “one of the elite clubs” in Southwest Florida, according to new general manager Missy Duffy. 

The centerpiece of the club’s efforts is a multi-million top-to-bottom renovation of its 19,000 square-foot clubhouse located just over the S.S. Jolley bridge on the Marco River.  

David Everitt, chairman of the club’s board of directors, has been overseeing the renovation with Duffy and said the club was in sore need of a physical upgrade. 

In its nearly 25 years of operation, the club had “some touch-ups here and there,” but nothing near the level of renovation it’s currently undergoing, Everitt said. “It was tired. And there were a lot of maintenance issues that had been neglected over the years.” 

The 2021 opening of the club’s new, state-of-the-art, 27-slip marina, christened The Riverside Marina, brought an influx of new boaters to the club, Everitt said. “It really drove the need for us to do the same thing to the clubhouse and make them match a bit better.” 

The renovated clubhouse will feature fresh, modern décor and open floor plans in its dining facilities to take full advantage of its sweeping waterfront views. Its kitchens are undergoing complete overhauls with all new equipment. A new members’ lounge and an extra bar are being built, and its office facilities are being upgraded to support more efficient operation of the club and improved service to members. 

“We’re revamping the entire club,” said Duffy, who noted that the club is also increasing its kitchen staff to provide two dedicated teams, one for events and one for member dining and cocktail services. Duffy also said the club is extending its hours to provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner Tuesday through Sunday and retaining its popular Sunday brunch. 

Everitt and Duffy said the physical renovation, which started this past January, should be complete by year-end, with a “soft opening” by Thanksgiving.  

“I told Missy I’m planning on having Thanksgiving dinner at the club. I may have to bring a McDonald’s bag, but I’m going have dinner here,” Everitt joked.  

Duffy was named general manager of the club in April after serving for two years as the club’s dockmaster, brought in by Everitt to run the club’s new dock facility in 2022. A self-described “yachtie” who has worked on and around boats most of her life, Duffy previously worked at marinas in Nantucket and Miami before her gig as dockmaster at Marco Island Yacht Club. She recently completed her MBA at FGCU. 

“Over the past year, before becoming GM, I also worked as a floor manager for a couple restaurants here in Marco,” she said.“It gave me the opportunity to get the front-of-house management experience better nailed down.” 

Everitt said Duffy has been a perfect fit as general manager and praises her self-starting initiative to learn all facets of the job.“She really thinks strategically but translates those strategic initiatives into action,” Everitt said of Duffy. “It’s turned out great. She’s part of the family now.” 

And “family” is a word you hear often when talking to Everitt and Duffy about the club and its members, who organized a GoFundMe drive for the club’s staff after Hurricane Ian, raising more than $20,000 in relief funds. Club members also donated all of the furniture in the subsidized housing the club provides to its international, H-2B visa staffers. 

Those efforts dovetail with its members’ ongoing philanthropic interests and activities, which the club supports, including Toys for Tots, For the Love of Cats, Golden Paws, SWFL Heroes Foundation, and Little Pink Houses of Hope, to name a few. 

Everitt said the club’s philanthropic committee has been on pause during construction “because we didn’t have the facility to support” those efforts, but that it’s planning to “ramp up” community activity going forward, leveraging the new clubhouse. 

Before retiring to Marco Island in 2012, Everitt, a native of Concordia, Kansas, had a successful business career, most recently serving 10 years as President of the Ag Division of John Deere, where he drove an ambitious international growth program and established operations in China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and Europe. That business acumen has served him well as chairman of the club’s board, a volunteer position he took over in 2016. 

“The club was in pretty dire financial straits at that point in time,” Everitt said. “We went through a substantial retrenchment, took out a lot of cost, laid off staff, changed the way we dealt with members. And we put together a strategic plan that called for the new marina, refurbishing the clubhouse, and having a membership level that sustains all that.” 

Everitt said the club today is “a “vibrant and financially sound” organization whose membership has tripled since he stepped into the role. 

The club can also tout its recent “Clean and Resilient Marina” designation from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, a certification that fewer than thirty marinas in Florida have earned. 

Duffy points out that while the club is still accepting new members, she expects there to be a new member waiting list within the next year once the renovations are complete and visible to the public. 

“I think this is going to be the place to be,” she said.  

Prospective members can contact the club for more details at membership@marcoislandyachtclub.net. Or 239-394-0199.