"Margaritaville" isn't a song about partying. The lyrics capture the low-stakes life of a beach bum — a vision that fueled late songwriter Jimmy Buffett to develop everything from restaurants to cruise lines, re-creating that low-rent lifestyle for a premium price.
One of dozens of resorts built on that premise, Margaritaville Beach Cottages Resort in Panama City Beach, Florida, has an assortment of villas and bungalows in an amenity-laden community for Jimmy Buffett fans to live out their dreams of nibblin' on sponge cake and watchin' the sun bake.
A house in the resort hit the market in September. The asking price for paradise: $2.19 million.
Taylor Moorman of Scenic Sotheby’s International Realty is handling the listing.
'We were drawn to the house as an investment opportunity'
Of course, one doesn’t have to love the music of the late Buffett to love life on the beach. The current owners of 13650 Front Beach Road (who declined to be named in this story) did not arrive as "Parrotheads," and they are leaving as they arrived.
“We were drawn to the house as an investment opportunity, as Margaritaville Resort is very popular and people travel to Panama City Beach to vacation, so it’s a perfect combination,” they told Homes.com in an email.
The owners bought the 3,176-square-foot home in 2023 — the year the resort opened — for $1.75 million, according to Bay County records.
The primary purpose of owning in Margaritaville is to rent it out, according to Kate Baldwin, director of guest and owner relations at the resort.
“A big part of it is the ability to purchase it and walk away and just let someone else handle it for you,” Baldwin said. “We take care of the homes. We handle all the rentals, and we handle all the marketing of the rentals.”
Baldwin stressed that people can also buy just for themselves. “You can be in the house as much as you like,” she said, but the resort has no permanent residents. "It's not really set up for that."
The five-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom home is three stories, with a game room and a three-bed bunk room on the top. The back patio includes a hot tub.
Amenities abound
The main attractions are mostly outside the house, which sits at the end of a block with the resort’s entertainment complex across the street.
“We love the location of the house because it’s a corner lot, which gives us direct access to the pool, lazy river, gym, restaurant and other amenities,” the owners wrote.
The place includes a 2-acre heated pool with waterslides. The gym and clubhouse, with an arcade, conference and event space, opened earlier this year.
The resort features two restaurants, License to Chill and The Salty Rim Bar. “It’s so great to be able to ride golf carts and get to places nearby and to have that option,” the owners said.
There is also a market, should an owner actually want to use the home’s open-plan kitchen.
But the real attraction is the thing that led Buffett to want to capture a whole lifestyle: the beach. The cottage is across the street from private access to the white sandy shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
“Our favorite part about the community is the private access to the beach,” the owners said. “The view is spectacular and is perfect for watching sunsets over the water ... The master shower is huge and has a window that has a view of the Gulf. What better way to start the day!”
A sign at the entrance to the beach access says, “It’s a sweet life livin’ by the salty sea.” Zac Brown of the Zac Brown Band wrote that line for the song “Knee Deep,” which features a verse from Buffett.
Buffett died in 2023 at the age of 76, leaving it up to future generations to keep the beach life fantasy alive.