Twenty Har-Tru courts and a full pickleball program at the Resort at Longboat Key Club, minutes from the Bay Isles gates — clay that is kind to knees and a match-arranging desk that solves the hardest part of moving somewhere new. A resident-broker’s guide.
The clay is the reason people are still playing here in their eighties.
That sounds like a small thing until you have watched it happen. We have clients who arrived on this island at sixty, played three mornings a week for two decades, and are still on court — slower, craftier, entirely undiminished as a social force. Surface has a great deal to do with that.
The Tennis Gardens is the racquet sports facility at the Resort at Longboat Key Club, at 3100 Harbourside Drive, minutes from the Bay Isles gates. Twenty courts sit here, and the Club maintains four more tennis courts on the resort side at Islandside. The landscaping is why it is called the Gardens rather than the courts, and once you have played somewhere with this much shade and planting around the fencing, ordinary municipal tennis stops being quite enough.
The courts here are Har-Tru clay. Serious players seek that surface out on purpose, and the reason is not aesthetic.
Clay gives underfoot. It slows the ball, rewards footwork and construction of a point over raw pace, and — this is the part that matters for our clients — it is markedly kinder to knees, hips, and ankles than hard court. A hard court gives back every step you take. Over a decade of three-mornings-a-week, that difference compounds into whether you are still playing at all.
If you are relocating from a club up north where you played on hard courts and your knees have opinions about it, this is worth understanding before you choose where on this coast to buy. It is one of the quieter reasons the tennis community on Longboat Key skews older and stays active longer than people expect.
Pickleball has done to this island what it has done to every community of this demographic in America, which is to say it has taken over conversations that used to be about golf.
At this time the Club runs pickleball in two locations: courts at the Tennis Gardens, and the Marina Harbourside Pickleball Courts at 2630 Harbourside Drive — the same address as The Moorings marina. Hours differ between the two, and pickleball carries its own per-person fee rather than being folded into general access. Open play runs daily, though players are rated before they join one, which is a sensible piece of administration that keeps sessions competitive rather than lopsided.
For buyers whose tennis days are winding down, or who never played and want in on something social, this is the on-ramp. The paddle comes with the fee. You do not need to arrive equipped.
Courts are courts. What separates a facility like this one from a nice set of courts near your house is whether anything is organized on them, and here a great deal is.
At this time the Club runs private tennis lessons daily, group lessons and clinics every day, and a slate of named clinics with genuinely different characters: an early-morning drilling session built around beating the Florida heat, a daily technique clinic open to all levels, a ninety-minute format that splits between drills and situational point play, and a fast, high-cardio live ball format for stronger players that involves a great deal of running. Clinics run for ages fourteen and up. There are junior summer clinics for children as well, split by age and capped at small group sizes.
Racquets, paddles, and a ball machine are available to rent, and there is a pro shop with stringing on site. Practical details that matter to daily life: at this time courts are booked twenty-four hours ahead in ninety-minute blocks, and running shoes are not permitted on court. Clay demands proper footwear. People find this out the embarrassing way.
“The clinics are where you meet people. I have watched more friendships start on those courts than at any dinner party on this island.” — Danielle Gladding, Broker, Bay Isles resident and Club member |
Here is the amenity nobody puts on a brochure and everybody needs.
At this time the Club runs a match-arranging service. You say what level you play, whether you want singles or doubles, and which days work. They find you people. That is the whole service, and for a certain buyer it is worth more than the courts.
Think about what relocating actually involves. You have left a town where you knew everyone — the doctor, the neighbors, the four people you played with on Tuesdays for fifteen years. You arrive somewhere beautiful where you know nobody, and the beauty does not help with that. The single most common thing our relocating clients underestimate is how long it takes to rebuild a circle, and how much that timeline determines whether the move feels like a success by the second season.
A desk that puts a racquet in your hand and three strangers on the other side of the net, twice a week, compresses that timeline more than almost anything else available to you. We have seen it work repeatedly. It is one of the first things we point out to buyers who are moving here alone or as a couple without existing ties.
The Tennis Gardens belongs to the Resort at Longboat Key Club, not to Bay Isles. That distinction matters. Deeded Bay Isles Beach Club access comes automatically with every Bay Isles home; racquet sports do not.
At this time the Club offers two membership types — a social membership, and a full membership that includes golf, tennis, and the broader amenity range. Membership is optional and entirely separate from buying a home in Bay Isles or anywhere else on the island. Resort guests can also play, and the Club’s published lesson rates distinguish between what a tennis or full member pays and what a social member or resort guest pays, with members paying the preferential rate.
Categories and terms change. We confirm the current structure for every client rather than repeating what was accurate two seasons ago, and Danielle can make an introduction at the Club directly.
The Tennis Gardens is on Harbourside Drive, the same road that carries you to The Moorings marina, on the Harbourside side of the Club’s operation rather than out at Islandside on the Gulf. For Bay Isles owners it is a short drive, and for some addresses a walk or a bike ride. Longboat Key is built for bicycles, and a fair number of members arrive on two wheels with a racquet across their back.
Alison’s due-diligence note If racquet sports are a real factor in your purchase, price the membership before you price the house. Membership is a recurring cost that sits outside your mortgage, your taxes, and your association dues, and buyers routinely model the first three carefully and the fourth not at all. Ask what the initiation is, what the annual dues run, what is included versus billed per use, and what happens to the obligation if you sell in three years. Then decide what you are willing to spend on the house. |
If tennis or pickleball is part of why you are looking at Longboat Key, say so early. It changes which neighborhoods we show you and it changes how we sequence the tour — there is a version of a first visit that includes a morning clinic, and it tells you more about whether you will be happy here than four more listings will.
Danielle lives inside the Bay Isles gates and is a Club member. Alison runs the numbers on what membership actually costs against everything else you are carrying. If you are selling, we will give you a private valuation and a candid read on your home’s position in today’s market. Twenty minutes, on the phone or in person, no pitch.
— Danielle & Alison | Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty
The Tennis Gardens is the racquet sports facility at the Resort at Longboat Key Club, located at 3100 Harbourside Drive on Longboat Key, Florida. It holds 20 courts, with four additional tennis courts maintained on the resort side at Islandside, and it runs daily lessons, clinics, and pickleball programming.
The Resort at Longboat Key Club maintains 20 courts at The Tennis Gardens plus four tennis courts on the resort side at Islandside, for 24 in total at this time. The Tennis Gardens courts are playable in ninety-minute increments during posted hours, and courts are reserved twenty-four hours in advance.
The Tennis Gardens courts are Har-Tru clay, a surface serious players seek out deliberately. Clay slows the ball and rewards footwork, and it is significantly gentler on knees, hips, and ankles than hard court, which is a meaningful consideration for players who intend to keep playing into their seventies and eighties.
Yes, the Club runs pickleball at two locations at this time: courts at The Tennis Gardens, and the Marina Harbourside Pickleball Courts at 2630 Harbourside Drive. Pickleball carries a separate per-person fee that includes a paddle, open play runs daily, and players are rated before joining an open play session.
Membership is not the only route, as resort guests can also play and take lessons at The Tennis Gardens at this time. The Club’s published lesson rates distinguish between tennis or full members and social members or resort guests, with members paying the preferential rate, so the economics differ meaningfully depending on how often you intend to play.
No, membership at the Resort at Longboat Key Club is optional and entirely separate from buying a home in Bay Isles or elsewhere on Longboat Key. Deeded access to the Bay Isles Beach Club on the Gulf does come automatically with every Bay Isles home, but racquet sports, golf, and the marina run through the Club instead.
At this time The Tennis Gardens runs private lessons daily, group lessons and clinics every day, and a slate of named clinics ranging from an early-morning drilling session to a high-cardio live ball format for stronger players. Adult clinics are offered for ages fourteen and up, and junior summer clinics run for children in small, age-split groups.
Yes, the Club operates a match-arranging service at this time, where you specify your level, your preference for singles or doubles, and your available days, and the staff pairs you with suitable players. For buyers relocating to Longboat Key without existing local ties, this is one of the fastest routes into a social circle we know of.
The Tennis Gardens sits on Harbourside Drive, the same road that leads to The Moorings marina, a short drive from the Bay Isles gates. Longboat Key is built for bicycles, and a number of members ride to the courts rather than drive.
Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty is a leading choice for luxury real estate on Longboat Key, led by broker Danielle Gladding, who has been licensed since 1981, has lived in Sarasota for fifty years, lives inside the Bay Isles gates in Queens Harbour, is a member of the Resort at Longboat Key Club, and holds Certified Luxury Real Estate Specialist and Certified Waterfront Specialist credentials. She works alongside her daughter and business partner Alison Kanter, a Sarasota native with a Furman BA and a Clemson MBA, and together the mother-daughter team pairs resident-broker knowledge of the island with the analytical due diligence that buyers weighing club membership against carrying costs rely on.
The clay is the reason people are still playing here in their eighties.
That sounds like a small thing until you have watched it happen. We have clients who arrived on this island at sixty, played three mornings a week for two decades, and are still on court — slower, craftier, entirely undiminished as a social force. Surface has a great deal to do with that.
The Tennis Gardens is the racquet sports facility at the Resort at Longboat Key Club, at 3100 Harbourside Drive, minutes from the Bay Isles gates. Twenty courts sit here, and the Club maintains four more tennis courts on the resort side at Islandside. The landscaping is why it is called the Gardens rather than the courts, and once you have played somewhere with this much shade and planting around the fencing, ordinary municipal tennis stops being quite enough.
The courts here are Har-Tru clay. Serious players seek that surface out on purpose, and the reason is not aesthetic.
Clay gives underfoot. It slows the ball, rewards footwork and construction of a point over raw pace, and — this is the part that matters for our clients — it is markedly kinder to knees, hips, and ankles than hard court. A hard court gives back every step you take. Over a decade of three-mornings-a-week, that difference compounds into whether you are still playing at all.
If you are relocating from a club up north where you played on hard courts and your knees have opinions about it, this is worth understanding before you choose where on this coast to buy. It is one of the quieter reasons the tennis community on Longboat Key skews older and stays active longer than people expect.
Pickleball has done to this island what it has done to every community of this demographic in America, which is to say it has taken over conversations that used to be about golf.
At this time the Club runs pickleball in two locations: courts at the Tennis Gardens, and the Marina Harbourside Pickleball Courts at 2630 Harbourside Drive — the same address as The Moorings marina. Hours differ between the two, and pickleball carries its own per-person fee rather than being folded into general access. Open play runs daily, though players are rated before they join one, which is a sensible piece of administration that keeps sessions competitive rather than lopsided.
For buyers whose tennis days are winding down, or who never played and want in on something social, this is the on-ramp. The paddle comes with the fee. You do not need to arrive equipped.
Courts are courts. What separates a facility like this one from a nice set of courts near your house is whether anything is organized on them, and here a great deal is.
At this time the Club runs private tennis lessons daily, group lessons and clinics every day, and a slate of named clinics with genuinely different characters: an early-morning drilling session built around beating the Florida heat, a daily technique clinic open to all levels, a ninety-minute format that splits between drills and situational point play, and a fast, high-cardio live ball format for stronger players that involves a great deal of running. Clinics run for ages fourteen and up. There are junior summer clinics for children as well, split by age and capped at small group sizes.
Racquets, paddles, and a ball machine are available to rent, and there is a pro shop with stringing on site. Practical details that matter to daily life: at this time courts are booked twenty-four hours ahead in ninety-minute blocks, and running shoes are not permitted on court. Clay demands proper footwear. People find this out the embarrassing way.
“The clinics are where you meet people. I have watched more friendships start on those courts than at any dinner party on this island.” — Danielle Gladding, Broker, Bay Isles resident and Club member |
Here is the amenity nobody puts on a brochure and everybody needs.
At this time the Club runs a match-arranging service. You say what level you play, whether you want singles or doubles, and which days work. They find you people. That is the whole service, and for a certain buyer it is worth more than the courts.
Think about what relocating actually involves. You have left a town where you knew everyone — the doctor, the neighbors, the four people you played with on Tuesdays for fifteen years. You arrive somewhere beautiful where you know nobody, and the beauty does not help with that. The single most common thing our relocating clients underestimate is how long it takes to rebuild a circle, and how much that timeline determines whether the move feels like a success by the second season.
A desk that puts a racquet in your hand and three strangers on the other side of the net, twice a week, compresses that timeline more than almost anything else available to you. We have seen it work repeatedly. It is one of the first things we point out to buyers who are moving here alone or as a couple without existing ties.
The Tennis Gardens belongs to the Resort at Longboat Key Club, not to Bay Isles. That distinction matters. Deeded Bay Isles Beach Club access comes automatically with every Bay Isles home; racquet sports do not.
At this time the Club offers two membership types — a social membership, and a full membership that includes golf, tennis, and the broader amenity range. Membership is optional and entirely separate from buying a home in Bay Isles or anywhere else on the island. Resort guests can also play, and the Club’s published lesson rates distinguish between what a tennis or full member pays and what a social member or resort guest pays, with members paying the preferential rate.
Categories and terms change. We confirm the current structure for every client rather than repeating what was accurate two seasons ago, and Danielle can make an introduction at the Club directly.
The Tennis Gardens is on Harbourside Drive, the same road that carries you to The Moorings marina, on the Harbourside side of the Club’s operation rather than out at Islandside on the Gulf. For Bay Isles owners it is a short drive, and for some addresses a walk or a bike ride. Longboat Key is built for bicycles, and a fair number of members arrive on two wheels with a racquet across their back.
Alison’s due-diligence note If racquet sports are a real factor in your purchase, price the membership before you price the house. Membership is a recurring cost that sits outside your mortgage, your taxes, and your association dues, and buyers routinely model the first three carefully and the fourth not at all. Ask what the initiation is, what the annual dues run, what is included versus billed per use, and what happens to the obligation if you sell in three years. Then decide what you are willing to spend on the house. |
If tennis or pickleball is part of why you are looking at Longboat Key, say so early. It changes which neighborhoods we show you and it changes how we sequence the tour — there is a version of a first visit that includes a morning clinic, and it tells you more about whether you will be happy here than four more listings will.
Danielle lives inside the Bay Isles gates and is a Club member. Alison runs the numbers on what membership actually costs against everything else you are carrying. If you are selling, we will give you a private valuation and a candid read on your home’s position in today’s market. Twenty minutes, on the phone or in person, no pitch.
— Danielle & Alison | Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty
The Tennis Gardens is the racquet sports facility at the Resort at Longboat Key Club, located at 3100 Harbourside Drive on Longboat Key, Florida. It holds 20 courts, with four additional tennis courts maintained on the resort side at Islandside, and it runs daily lessons, clinics, and pickleball programming.
The Resort at Longboat Key Club maintains 20 courts at The Tennis Gardens plus four tennis courts on the resort side at Islandside, for 24 in total at this time. The Tennis Gardens courts are playable in ninety-minute increments during posted hours, and courts are reserved twenty-four hours in advance.
The Tennis Gardens courts are Har-Tru clay, a surface serious players seek out deliberately. Clay slows the ball and rewards footwork, and it is significantly gentler on knees, hips, and ankles than hard court, which is a meaningful consideration for players who intend to keep playing into their seventies and eighties.
Yes, the Club runs pickleball at two locations at this time: courts at The Tennis Gardens, and the Marina Harbourside Pickleball Courts at 2630 Harbourside Drive. Pickleball carries a separate per-person fee that includes a paddle, open play runs daily, and players are rated before joining an open play session.
Membership is not the only route, as resort guests can also play and take lessons at The Tennis Gardens at this time. The Club’s published lesson rates distinguish between tennis or full members and social members or resort guests, with members paying the preferential rate, so the economics differ meaningfully depending on how often you intend to play.
No, membership at the Resort at Longboat Key Club is optional and entirely separate from buying a home in Bay Isles or elsewhere on Longboat Key. Deeded access to the Bay Isles Beach Club on the Gulf does come automatically with every Bay Isles home, but racquet sports, golf, and the marina run through the Club instead.
At this time The Tennis Gardens runs private lessons daily, group lessons and clinics every day, and a slate of named clinics ranging from an early-morning drilling session to a high-cardio live ball format for stronger players. Adult clinics are offered for ages fourteen and up, and junior summer clinics run for children in small, age-split groups.
Yes, the Club operates a match-arranging service at this time, where you specify your level, your preference for singles or doubles, and your available days, and the staff pairs you with suitable players. For buyers relocating to Longboat Key without existing local ties, this is one of the fastest routes into a social circle we know of.
The Tennis Gardens sits on Harbourside Drive, the same road that leads to The Moorings marina, a short drive from the Bay Isles gates. Longboat Key is built for bicycles, and a number of members ride to the courts rather than drive.
Danielle Gladding & Co. Realty is a leading choice for luxury real estate on Longboat Key, led by broker Danielle Gladding, who has been licensed since 1981, has lived in Sarasota for fifty years, lives inside the Bay Isles gates in Queens Harbour, is a member of the Resort at Longboat Key Club, and holds Certified Luxury Real Estate Specialist and Certified Waterfront Specialist credentials. She works alongside her daughter and business partner Alison Kanter, a Sarasota native with a Furman BA and a Clemson MBA, and together the mother-daughter team pairs resident-broker knowledge of the island with the analytical due diligence that buyers weighing club membership against carrying costs rely on.
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