Two luxurious restaurants flanking the central lobby will be destinations the public can experience in the otherwise private boutique hotel and club planned to replace the longtime Beacon Bowl, which will close this August across U.S. 41 from Waterside Shops in North Naples.
“Two amazing restaurants,” said local entrepreneur Phil McCabe, who is developing The Carnelian hotel and its Sterling’s private club with his sons, Philip and Joseph, as part of their Naples-based Gulf Coast Commercial Corp. “Our club members will have reservation privileges to both restaurants.”
The restaurant brands are not being announced yet for dining venues planned for 6,000 and 8,000 square feet but the McCabes intend to attract high-quality restaurant operators on a national level to their new all-suite, six-story hotel at 5400 Trail Blvd., near the northeast corner of U.S. 41 and Pine Ridge Road.
“The interest is pretty extraordinary on a national basis,” said Philip McCabe. “We’re probably announce those at the beginning of the season.”
The Carnelian’s first floor will be the only public part of the 70-suite hotel. The second floor will have offices, meeting rooms and a ballroom, but it will be dominated by a wellness club and spa. The luxury suites will be on the third, fourth and fifth floors, while the sixth floor will have Sterling’s amenities, including a club lounge, dining room, bar, cigar lounge and covered terraces.
Sterling’s
“On top of The Carnelian hotel is a gem. It will be quite special, a special place,” McCabe said. “That’s not just something that’s special for Naples. We’re bringing something that’s special on the world stage.”
The McCabes extensively studied clubs around the world to create Sterling’s. One of the reasons it’s called Sterling’s is that it’s taking inspiration from the sterling pound in the U.K. and bringing glamorous hospitality here from London, McCabe said.
The McCabes compare the sixth floor to Annabel’s, an elegant, private members-only club in London with a global reputation for its first-class service, cuisine and entertainment. The Vine Room, a speakeasy that Philip McCabe owns and operates on Fifth Avenue South in downtown Naples, will have a sister location in Sterling’s for club members only. Branding for Sterling’s positions it as an exclusive retreat.
“Step inside, and you’ll be transported to an opulent, seductive setting that feels like a world apart. By day, it’s a lively social hub for networking and relaxation. By night, it transforms into a lavish spectacle of indulgence and glamour, where the party never stops,” according to a presentation by King & Partners, a New York-based marketing agency hired to brand the hotel.
Another level
Amenities for hotel guests and club members also will be on the hotel’s second floor, which will have a wing for a large, state-of-the-art wellness center.
“We have employed an amazing spa consultant who is helping us develop the programming of the wellness center,” McCabe said. “We’re going to have everything from bio-saunas to steam rooms with aroma therapy, hydrotherapy, cold plunge, hot plunge. We’ll have a pool on the roof for swimming laps, so really the offering on the wellness side is going to be very significant.”
The McCabes, known for previously developing local boutique hotels such as the Inn on Fifth, plan to take their five-star hotel with club-level suites to a new level in Naples while perfecting the all-suite hotel.
“We have traveled all over the world looking at some of the best hotels in the places that have them—like London, for example, that opened the new Peninsula and Raffles hotels we looked at. We’re studying all the nuances and the suite itself,” McCabe said, noting that their suites will include features such as seating areas, walk-in closets and double vanities. “The standard suite is really going to be an amazing experience.”
Their inspiration is worldly with a great deal of thought behind creating the venue’s identity.
“We are doing our due diligence on the research side and also the branding and the design of the entire project,” said McCabe, who believes nothing in Naples compares to what is being created with The Carnelian and Sterling’s. “As far as we’re concerned, there really aren’t any comps in town,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons that we feel so confident about the location. We’re taking sort of the glamour of a London city social club and combining it with the lifestyle of a city club, like a New York athletic club, where we’re incorporating a 10,000-square-foot wellness center and a rooftop that is like no other and has multiple pools and cabanas that you can rent with beautiful views of the Gulf of Mexico.”
Views of the Gulf will be able to be seen from the fourth floor up. McCabe also promotes the site’s proximity to the world-class retail destination Waterside Shops directly across the street and its short distance to the beach.
“We are seven minutes door to sand for beach access at Seagate,” he said, noting that concierge shuttles will be available from the hotel to nearby destinations such as the beach, Waterside Shops and Artis—Naples performances.
“We love it because we think that we can showcase sort of a new form of hospitality that is really like luxury bed and breakfast. It has that sort of attention and intimacy,” McCabe said. “But this is a different level.”
The Carnelian name is inspired by the deep, vibrant red-orange of the carnelian gemstone, symbolizing the hotel’s luxury, warmth, sophistication and classic style. The stone’s color will be reflected in the hotel’s awnings, lampshades and elsewhere, and the actual stone will be used as well throughout the hotel in the guest rooms and some of the common areas, McCabe said.
The proposed hotel project includes the landscaping of the southern end of Trail Boulevard, which will serve as the entranceway into the hotel, expected to be completed in early 2026.
“Our goal is to revitalize all of Trail Boulevard up to Ridge [Drive],” McCabe said. “It’s like a linear park along the small commercial area that is on Trail across from Waterside Shops. The goal is to really improve the east side of 41 actually in a transformative way.”
Beacon beckons
The redevelopment project is targeted to begin shortly after the iconic Bowland Beacon’s lease ends Aug. 31. The bowling alley’s last day of business is expected to be Aug. 17.
Bowland’s local owners are still hoping to find a suitable location to build a replacement with more lanes and amenities that would be relaunched as HeadPinz Beacon. The company also owns and operates HeadPinz Fort Myers in south Fort Myers and HeadPinz Naples in East Naples.
It was not an easy decision for owner Pat Ciniello to sell Beacon’s longtime property.
“There are so many memories created at Beacon Bowl over the years. But with my original partners both now in their 90s, the offer to sell was simply too compelling to pass up,” he said.
The 2.6-acre Beacon Bowl property sold last fall for $8 million while the adjacent half-acre property with St. Francis Animal Clinic, 5380 Trail Blvd., sold for $4.3 million to companies owned by the McCabes, according to public records from the Collier County property appraiser’s office.
Ciniello’s team especially has been searching along Immokalee Road in North Naples for a suitable replacement with more acreage to expand their bowling business.
“We’re looking at a pretty big facility of probably a minimum 45,000 to 50,000 square feet,” he said.
This story was published in The Naples Press on June 7.
