Bass Pro Shops has bought the Cheeca Lodge & Spa, the storied Florida Keys fishing resort that has drawn anglers, presidents and adventurers to Islamorada for nearly 80 years.
The outdoor retailer announced the deal on June 16, acquiring the property through its nature-based resorts division. The price was not disclosed. Bass Pro said it plans to join Cheeca with the neighbouring World Wide Sportsman Store & Marina — a saltwater specialist shop the company bought in 1997 — to create what it called "a true seaside adventure paradise" in the heart of the Keys.
Founded in 1946, Cheeca sits in Islamorada, the self-styled "sportfishing capital of the world." The resort offers oceanfront lodges and cottages, three tropical swimming pools, a full-service spa, a 9-hole Jack Nicklaus-designed par-3 golf course and a 525-foot fishing pier. Bass Pro says it intends to enhance the resort while preserving its character, modelling the approach on its flagship Big Cedar Lodge in the Missouri Ozarks, which hosts 7.5 million guests a year.
For founder Johnny Morris, the purchase is personal. He traced his connection to the Keys back to a boyhood trip.
"I have been very blessed to have spent my entire life around the great sport of fishing," Morris said. "I will never forget dreaming about and then getting to catch my first tarpon on a fly. I was 16 years old fishing with my best buddy, my Dad and Capt. Sonny Eslinger on Buchanan Bank out of Bud N' Mary's Marina."
"I have come to have enormous respect for the history of Islamorada, and the generations of anglers and families who have made memories here or who are blessed to call the Keys home," Morris said. "We're humbled and honored to have the opportunity to help protect it and carry that story forward."
A recipient of the Audubon Medal, Morris has built a conservation record around his properties; more than half of Big Cedar's 24,000 acres have been donated and permanently preserved through the not-for-profit Johnny Morris Conservation Foundation. Bass Pro says Cheeca will double as an outpost connecting visitors to the Everglades and the wider Keys.
That conservation framing won an endorsement from one of the region's most prominent environmental voices.
"Johnny and Bass Pro Shops have always understood the importance of protecting the Everglades and celebrating our fishing heritage, making them outstanding partners for the future of the Keys," said Eric Eikenberg, chief executive of The Everglades Foundation.
The deal also lands at a particular moment for the hotel market. The seller, Northwood Investors, had been exploring a sale of the property, which a Bloomberg News report in April valued at around $300 million. That report noted that luxury hotels have been outperforming the rest of the lodging industry — context that helps explain both Northwood's exit and Bass Pro's appetite for a trophy asset on the water.
For anglers, the practical upshot is that one of the Keys' best-known resorts will now sit under the same banner as the tackle shop and marina next door. Whether Bass Pro's promised "enhancements" preserve the low-key, old-Florida feel that made Cheeca famous — or push it further upmarket — will be the question regulars watch closely as the new ownership settles in.