Andrew Dear’s appointment as General Manager of The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Naples, marks a pivotal moment in luxury residential living in Florida.
Andrew Dear’s appointment as General Manager of The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Naples, marks a pivotal moment in luxury residential living in Florida.
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The sunlit shores of Naples, Florida have a way of making things feel inevitable. The Gulf light, the lagoon at dusk, the particular unhurried ease of Vanderbilt Beach—it all suggests that whatever comes here was always meant to come here. And yet what STOCK Development has built at the intersection of that coastline and Vanderbilt Lagoon is anything but accidental.
The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Naples is entering its final act. Sales have been relentless: in the Bay Residences alone, only eight units remain. The Tower and Bay Residences will begin closing this summer. And this month, STOCK launched The Park Residences—twenty three-bedroom homes in a five-story mid-rise, starting at $4 million, occupying the last available release in what has become one of Southwest Florida’s most closely watched new addresses.
Into this moment of arrival walks Andrew Dear.
Dear is British, unhurried, and twenty-plus years deep into Marriott’s luxury residential portfolio. His most recent posting was at the Ritz-Carlton Residences in the Turks and Caicos, where he ran operations with the particular attentiveness that defines the brand at its best. The owners there, by all accounts, knew he had things handled. That’s the job, in the end—not the visible choreography of five-star service, but the invisible architecture beneath it that makes everything feel effortless.
Brian Stock, whose family-owned STOCK Development has built more than 6,000 high-end homes across Southwest Florida over two decades, put it plainly: Dear’s “deep understanding of The Ritz-Carlton culture” and track record across international markets made him the obvious choice to guide this community through opening. What goes unsaid—but is worth saying—is that the timing matters. A general manager who arrives at groundbreaking shapes a project differently than one who arrives when the first residents are six months out. Dear is here for the latter: the moment when the vision becomes a home.
The community he’s inheriting is 128 estate-like residences across five boutique-scale buildings, positioned between The Ritz-Carlton, Naples and The Ritz-Carlton Naples, Tiburón. Architecture is by Curts Gaines Hall Jones; interiors by Cristian Pinedo of SUSURRUS; landscape by Booth Design Group. Marc-Michaels Interior Design handles turnkey options for buyers who want to walk in and simply begin.
The amenity program is anchored by the 28,000-square-foot Vanderbilt Club: atrium lounge, private restaurant, full-service spa, resort-style pool deck, marina, golf simulator, Formula 1 simulator for the teenagers, fire pits, shaded pavilions. More than 50,000 square feet in total, managed by The Ritz-Carlton. It is, in the language of the sector, comprehensive. But what distinguishes it from comparable programs elsewhere is harder to quantify—something in the proportions, perhaps, or in the calibration between scale and intimacy that STOCK has spent two decades learning how to achieve.
Later this year, a 30-foot stainless-steel sculpture called Vivacious by artist Hunter Brown will be installed along the public edge of the development. It was commissioned as a visual landmark—a piece designed to mark the threshold between the city and whatever this place is trying to be. The name is interesting. Vivacious doesn’t suggest quiet wealth. It suggests something more alive.
The Park Residences, the final building, sits adjacent to a landscaped retreat of manicured lawns, reflection pools, and stately palms. Nine-foot ceilings. Expansive terraces. A private rooftop pool. Access to Vanderbilt Beach. Starting at $4 million, complementing the Tower Residences from $6 million and the Bay from $5 million.
“Buyers in Naples continue to prioritize new construction along the Gulf,” said Claudine Léger-Wetzel, STOCK’s VP of Sales & Marketing, “particularly when it delivers both privacy and service at this level.” That reads as a measured statement, but the sales velocity underneath it is not measured at all. Twenty homes remain across the entire community. The appetite, apparently, has not found its ceiling.
Dear’s arrival raises a question worth sitting with: what actually constitutes a successful branded residence in 2026? The amenity checklist has become so refined, so reliably stocked with spas and simulators and resident-only dining, that differentiation now lives elsewhere. It lives in the relationship between a general manager and the owners who trusted him with their home. In whether the pool attendant knows your name and how much conversation you want. In whether the community that forms here feels curated or accidental.
“Naples is a remarkable market defined by elegance, authenticity, and community,” Dear said at his appointment. He named three things, and none of them were the amenities. That, perhaps, is the tell.
The first residents will arrive this summer. The last homes are quietly, unhurriedly going under contract. And somewhere on a job site between two Ritz-Carltons, in the particular Naples light, something is very nearly finished.
The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Naples sales gallery is located at 2355 Vanderbilt Beach Rd., Suite 106. The Park Residences are priced from $4 million. RCRNaples.com
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