Casa Bonita I and II are sister Gulf-front buildings on Hickory Blvd at the peaceful north end of Bonita Beach — eight stories, 55 residences each, all two-bedroom, two-bath floor plans from roughly 1,044 to 1,349 square feet, with a beachfront pool, direct sand access, and covered parking. Fifty years on, the buildings hold beachfront positions that cannot be built again on Little Hickory Island.

The market says the rest plainly. Casa Bonita listings currently run from the mid-$600Ks for original-condition units to $999,000–$1,045,000 for fully renovated residences — same towers, same beach, same floor plans. The spread between dated and renovated here is several times the cost of the renovation itself, and with a 30-day minimum rental structure allowing up to twelve leases a year, a finished unit earns its keep in season too. On a 1973 building, the interior is the investment.

Kitchen Investment,
Priced to Casa Bonita Comps.

Most Casa Bonita kitchens are still working against their 1973 bones: a closed galley pinned to the plumbing wall, dropped soffits, bulkhead ceilings, and cabinet runs sized for a different era of cooking. In a 1,044–1,349 square-foot two-bedroom, opening that galley to the living room is the single biggest move a kitchen remodel can make — it pulls the Gulf view into the kitchen and makes the whole main living area feel a floor plan larger. Because these units sit on concrete slab with defined stack walls, we map what can move and what cannot during the free LiDAR scan, so the layout you approve is the layout that gets built.

Beachfront buildings also punish the wrong materials. Salt air finds cheap hinges, builder-grade appliance finishes, and porous stone, which is why our Casa Bonita specifications lean on marine-tolerant hardware, fingerprint-resistant appliance packages, and quartz at the Good and Better tiers — with natural quartzite reserved for owners at the Best tier who want the finish level the building’s $1M renovated comps are showing. Every project is staged around Casa Bonita’s elevator schedule and association work hours, with materials sequenced to the island so your unit never sits idle waiting on a delivery.

Bathroom Investment,
Same Math, Wet-Room Ready.

Casa Bonita’s two-bath floor plans put the primary and guest baths on shared plumbing stacks, which is exactly why we recommend doing both in one mobilization: the walls open once, the fifty-year-old supply lines and shutoff valves get replaced once, and the waterproofing behind every wet wall is brought to current standards in a single pass. On a 1973 building a few hundred feet from the Gulf, that hidden layer — full membrane waterproofing, proper ventilation, moisture-rated backer — matters as much as the tile you see, because humidity and salt air find every shortcut a previous remodel took.

Scope-wise, the guest bath is where compact moves pay off: a tub-to-shower conversion with frameless glass turns a dated 5×8 into the room renters photograph, and large-format porcelain gives you the stone look with the durability a 30-day rental schedule demands. The primary bath is the appraisal driver — curbless wet rooms, custom vanities with double sinks, and heated floors are what the building’s $999K–$1,045K renovated comps have in common. We spec natural stone where owners live and porcelain where renters rotate, and every fixture package is chosen for coastal tolerance, not just catalog looks.