Log Home Restoration in Naples, FL

Log Homes in Naples and Collier County

Naples was a planned town. On November 6, 1886, a group of investors formed the Naples Town Improvement Company, and work soon began on a 20-room hotel, six cottages and a 600-foot pier that was the town's "lifeline to the outside world." Naples' oldest surviving house, Palm Cottage (1895), isn't wood at all. It's tabby, a homemade concrete of burned, crushed shells mixed with sand and water. Wood came from the swamps: around 1912, a sidewalk along the avenue was cut from cypress harvested in the Everglades.

Collier County's biggest timber era came later. The Lee Tidewater Cypress Company had bought the Fakahatchee Strand in 1913 and started major logging in 1944, when the government needed cypress for wartime boats. By 1948 about a million board feet of cypress was leaving the Strand every week, much of it from trees hundreds of years old, and workers lived in company towns such as Copeland and Jerome. Lee Tidewater shipped about 360 million board feet to its mill in Perry, Florida, about an hour from our shop. Timber homes are still part of rural Collier County, from acreage east of Naples to homes near the water.

What Naples' Climate Does to a Log Home

• Rain. Naples averages about 49½ inches of rain a year.
• A concentrated wet season. About 79% of it falls May through October, and August is the wettest month at almost 9 inches.
• Heat. About 104 days a year reach 90°F or higher.
• Freezes are rare. About one freezing night every decade.
• Direct hurricane hits. Wilma (2005) made landfall near Cape Romano as a Category 3 with a 4–8 foot surge along the Collier coast. Irma (2017) came ashore at Marco Island as a Category 3, and Naples Municipal Airport recorded a 142 mph gust.
• Ian's storm surge. In 2022, Hurricane Ian flooded parts of Naples 6–9 feet above ground level.
• Termites. UF/IFAS reports the Formosan subterranean termite is established in most of Florida's coastal counties, and the invasive Asian subterranean termite has been found in boats in Naples.

What That Means for Your Log Home

In Naples, most of the risk comes from water: summer downpours and storm surge. Wash your logs once a year with soft brushes and a low-pressure rinse, never a pressure washer, and recoat with UV protection about every third year, as appropriate for the sun on each wall. Keep the lowest logs dry and off the soil, with plants, mulch and sprinkler spray kept back from the walls. After any storm, especially one that brought flooding, walk around the house and look for logs that stayed wet, peeling stain and any spot where wood touches soil or debris. If termites turn up, have a licensed pest control company treat the active infestation first; then we repair the damage and apply a Borate preventive treatment.

Related services: Log Home Inspections · Staining & Refinishing · Log Rot Repair

Climate figures: NOAA 1991–2020 normals, Naples Municipal Airport. Storm details: National Hurricane Center. History: City of Naples, Naples Historical Society, Friends of Fakahatchee, Gulfshore Business. Termites: UF/IFAS.