Mick Moore always had a special relationship with his father, Mike. It became even stronger when they started working together 20 years ago.

The Moores own the Vanderbilt Beach Resort, a Naples hospitality mainstay and the only family-owned resort left in town. They also co-own the resort’s popular restaurant The Turtle Club with partner Pete Tierney.

“Some people might have a problem working with a family member, but we’ve had a great working relationship,” Mick said. “He has been a mentor and a friend and I’ve learned a lot from him. It’s interesting because he’s my father, and obviously I knew him well before we started working together— but I got to see a whole different side of him when we’re working together. It just made me admire him more than I already did.”

Mick, 54, grew up around the resort, mowing the lawns when he became old enough to do so and spending plenty of time at the beach as a teenager. But he wasn’t initially immersed in the family business, going into the legal field instead—working as a trial lawyer in Washington, D.C., before moving back to Naples in 2000 with wife Diane when they decided to start their family.

“I never put any expectations on him (about joining the family business), and I was happy he was doing so well as a lawyer in Washington,” Mike, 83, said. “When he and Diane decided to move down to Naples, I thought it was mainly nice just to have him back around. It just worked out that he was interested in what we were doing at the hotel.”

Mick worked as a lawyer for four more years before becoming deeply involved at the Vanderbilt Beach Resort in 2004.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t fully appreciate what our little hotel did for people,” he said. “As I got older, I began to realize what a great business it was. My dad taught me early on that what we do at the hotel has a lot of meaning, and to this day we help family and friends reconnect and provide a little oasis for them to relax, recharge their batteries and restore connections with each other before they go back to being busy with their lives.”

Mick described his dad as an engineering genius and someone who really likes to know the way things work. Mike has always been adept at fixing things and loved taking on new projects, such as expanding the hotel and adding condominiums to the property.

Mike himself wasn’t always involved in the hotel business, having worked at IBM in Burlington, Vermont, for several years before moving to Naples. Mike’s dad Robert had bought the resort in 1968 and run it for nine years before succumbing to cancer in 1977.

“Unfortunately, I was never able to pick my dad’s brain a lot about running the business,” Mike said. “But I always knew how much he enjoyed it. We had already talked a bit about expansion plans and when I moved down, I wasn’t quite sure if it would be for good. I took a six-month leave of absence from IBM just in case, but it turns out I loved (running the hotel) right away. First off, no bosses. It’s your own business, you make the choices of where we’re going to head. We did expand out from 30 rooms to add 20 more rooms and we kept on going from there. I loved taking on all those projects. My dad had always told me this area would eventually grow, and look at where Naples is now.”

When he first took over the business, Mike said there’d be stretches after Labor Day when the resort would go weeks with no guests booked. But he persevered, believing in his vision that eventually things would get better. And year by year, through hard work and dedication to his craft, they did.

“Being an engineer, I loved the projects, I loved construction and of course I loved meeting the people,” Mike said. “The people are just amazing. We’ve had such wonderful guests I’ve had the pleasure to get to know. I’m very blessed to have done all that.”

Mick said he marvels at everything his father has accomplished, and Mike said his son runs the business “better than I ever could.”

“My father’s been my primary role model my entire life and even more so since I started working with him,” Mick said. “I continue to be completely amazed at how good a person he is and how smart and kind he is. If you ask anybody about our father, most people will say they’ve never met a nicer, kinder person. It’s not always easy to be that type of person in business, but he makes it work.

“He’s not only my role model, he’s my friend. He’s given me so much advice I’m not sure I could pick one thing out; it’s been more watching what he does rather than following the things he said. The most amazing thing about him is how he takes care of people, whether they’re customers, guests, vendors or employees. He’ll go out of his way to help anyone who needs it.”

Mike doesn’t hide the pride he has for everything his son has accomplished and all he’s brought to the business.

“He’s just a wonderful son, I can’t say enough about him,” Mike said. “He’s multitalented. Being an attorney he can cover all the bases, and his legal advice has always come in handy over the years. He’s just got a lot of skills. Being so outgoing and personable, he was a natural fit for the hospitality business. He’s also very good at working through problems, having that attorney background he could come up with some great ideas on how to solve them. He’s just brought so much to the entire business and people picked up on it right away.”

Mike felt so sure about Mick’s business acumen that he began gradually handing over the reins to the business to his eldest son five years ago. He started working four days a week and taking off three, then three days a week, and so on until he was barely coming in. He had full confidence his son could take over, allowing Mike to retire— although Mick still seeks his dad’s advice and Mike still loves hanging out at the hotel from time to time.

“He gradually handed things over to me, which was great because he was supervising to make sure everything was OK and I felt like I had a safety net there,” Mick said. “I could always go back to him and ask him anything I needed to. And I knew it was a huge day when he told me, ‘I don’t need my desk anymore, you can move over to my desk.’” The Moores’ partnership has been so strong over the years for many reasons, one of which is their ability to compromise with each other.

“We never had too many conflicts, but we always discussed things and usually took a night or so to think about it and then come back the next day and meet somewhere in the middle,” Mick said. “If either one of us felt very strongly about something, usually the other will give way, but we’ve always been good at compromising. One thing that’s helped us work together so well for so many years is he’s tolerant of me with new ideas and I’m patient with his wanting to hold fast to certain things we do. I think we complement each other well.”

When Hurricane Ian ripped through in September 2022, forcing the shutdown of the hotel and restaurant for the better part of two years, Mick’s leadership came to the fore while Mike helped his son wherever and whenever he was needed. Mike, an expert gardener and landscaper, began rebuilding the gardens on the property, making them even more immaculate than they were before, Mick said.

Meanwhile, Mike marveled at everything his son had to take on and the way he handled himself.

“The hurricane was just devastating,” Mike said. “Getting everything cleaned out and dealing with employees we needed to help, handling the insurance issue. Getting the biohazard people in and starting the reconstruction, he was just masterful at dealing with all the issues. I was there to help whenever he needed help but everything was really his call. Fortunately, he still talks to me a lot and asks for my advice and I just love working with him. Again, he’s got so many skills and the ability to do a lot of things at once, dealing with a lot of balls in the air.”

Mick and his wife Diane have two daughters in college—Madison just completed her third year at Yale and Logan her second at Bucknell. Logan plans to work at the hotel parttime during the summer.

“That would make four generations of us who have worked here,” Mike said. “Mick is a great family man and he and Diane have given us two wonderful granddaughters. What can I say? I have been truly blessed.”

This story was published in The Naples Press on June 14.