Area Guide for this Luxury Gulf-view Florida Rental, Abaco Rose on Inlet Beach on the Stunning Emerald Coast in Northwest Florida. Enjoy Florida Vacation!

A Tour of Scenic Highway 30-A

If you leave Abaco Rose and turn along the boundary of the Village of Rosemary Beach, then turn left on Scenic Highway 30-A - you've a lovely drive ahead!

30-A is a 20-mile stretch of road punctuated with quaint, quirky and upscale beach villages and resorts, stunning Caribbean-blue Gulf waters, 17 rare coastal dune lakes and 25,000 acres of protected natural habitats. The sugar-white beaches along 30-A are hailed as some of the finest in the world by tourists, travel experts and conservationists alike.

Inlet Beach, Florida (home of Abaco Rose) is located at the eastern edge of Walton County. It gets its name from Phillips Inlet, which separates Walton and Bay Counties. Established in the 1920s by the McCaskill Investment Company of DeFuniak Springs, Inlet Beach quickly became an area where young veterans from World War II returned and applied for land offered through a latter-day version of the Homestead Act. In 1947, the Birmingham News ran an article about the Bureau of Land Development giving veterans first choice in a lottery. So many veterans built in the area, it was referred to as “Soldiers Beach.”

Rosemary Beach, with calm gulf waters, soothing rays of sunshine, and silky sand beaches, is a great place to unwind and soak up the scenery. Rosemary Beach's unique architecture is what first captures your attention, with its Dutch and West Indies-inspired homes and commercial buildings. Building palettes run to colors found in nature-mostly shades of rust, tan, green and brown, with Bermuda shutters, wide second floor porches, and arched garage doors. Gates and fences open in Rosemary Beach, Florida with a latchkey, with steps leading to entrances on the second floor. Walls line both sides of the solid entryway steps, a feature right out of the Caribbean. Footpaths and boardwalks in Rosemary lead to large decks over the dunes and, of course, to the beach below. The result gives Rosemary Beach something completely different, classical and inspiring. Established in 1995 and named for the dune rosemary, Rosemary Beach, Florida is still growing, adding not only homes, but also new places to shop and dine in the Town Center.

Seagrove Beach is where families came, back in the 1940s and 1950s, to rent modest one-story cottages with paddle fans instead of air conditioning and wide screened porches (perfect for sleeping). The same families returned to Seagrove Beach year after year, and now second and third generations make the journey. Many of those charming Seagrove cottages still exist, although they've been updated for today's travelers and are now thoroughly shaded by mature scrub trees and plants. Swimming and sandcastle building were once the popular pastimes at Seagrove Beach, since there weren't many commercial ventures in the Seagrove area. Now Seagrove Beach, Florida visitors have numerous options for recreation as well as dining. Eastern and Deer Lakes provide wonderful spots for quiet reflection.

Seaside made a giant splash in the architectural world when developer Robert Davis achieved the most astonishing design achievement of its era, according to Time magazine. The new movement in land planning, known as New Urbanism, contains narrow streets, unique picket fences and homes tightly knit to encourage walking and a community feel. It was the first of its kind, creating the model for towns across America. Seaside's "walk-to-anywhere" design works to bring necessary shops and services to its residents and guests, including a post office and a school. Seaside, Florida is home to a gourmet food market, multiple art galleries, and small boutiques all centered around a town square with an outdoor amphitheater. Park the car and rent bicycles to explore this wildly successful pioneering town, featured in the 1997 motion picture The Truman Show. For the cultural minded, visit the Seaside Repertory Theatre. Hailed as Northwest Florida’s premier professional theatre company, in six short seasons to date, the Rep has built itself into a first-rate regional theatre, attracting some of the finest talent from around the country.

“Seaside could be the most astounding design achievement of its era..." Time Magazine
“Seaside — with its cozy, narrow streets and its jumble of pastel-colored homes — is probably the most influential resort community since Versailles." Newsweek

Grayton Beach was the first community established in Walton County, Florida, sometime in the late 19th century. If you walk down one of Grayton Beach's oyster-shell roads, you may have the feeling things don't change very fast here. Pine and oak trees surround many of the natural old wooden homes. Grayton Beach, which celebrated its 110th anniversary July 4th, 2000 still maintains that same “small cozy town” character with narrow tree lined streets and friendly people with funky art galleries, antique and specialty shops, a general store, and the infamous Red Bar. The most popular indoor destination in Grayton Beach, the Red Bar is a favorite for fun with friends and family while taking in the eclectic decor, listening to great live jazz music and enjoying great food and cocktails.

Grayton Beach is well known for the incomparable natural beauty of the Grayton Beach State Park, which spans the Gulf of Mexico and most of Western Lake. Enjoy a charming cabin or bring your own RV or tent for an exciting camping adventure. The Grayton Beach hiking trail is one of the most scenic in the area, circling sand dunes, skirting the coastal dune lake, and cutting right through a dense scrub hammock. With the public dock on scenic Western Lake, kayaking or canoeing offers great exploring opportunities.

Blue Mountain is the name given by the first European settlers who may have mistaken this community's towering dunes for mountains after being at sea for months. They may also have been impressed by the lush vegetation covering the dunes, especially the spiky shape of the Gulf Coast lupine, which lives in the dune scrub along Florida's Emerald Coast. With its fuzzy blue leaves and purplish blue flowers that look like tiny sweet peas, it is easy to speculate that blue flowers covering tall dunes gave Blue Mountain its unusual name.

The 19-mile paved Timpoochee Trail ambles along Scenic Highway 30-A providing hikers and bikers an opportunity to enjoy the scenic beauty of the coastal dune lakes, dense woodlands and architecturally stunning communities that make up the Blue Mountain area.

Santa Rosa Beach includes the historic community of Point Washington, where the Wesley Mansion, built in the 1890’s and housing the largest collection of original Louis XVI antiques in the South, resides in the beautiful Eden State Gardens. Once a thriving lumber mill during the turn of the century, it has since been dedicated to the state for preservation. Topsail Hill State Preserve, located in the community of Santa Rosa, could be the state's most pristine piece of property; its beach, dunes, coastal dune lake and cypress swamp have remained nearly untouched since the first Europeans settled here five centuries ago. Santa Rosa Beach offers several entrances to Point Washington State Forest, a 15,000-acre preserve with more than 10 miles of trails. Gulf Place hosted the 2007 Seabreeze Jazz Festival at their 2-acre amphitheater as well as other outdoor events. The Santa Rosa Golf and Beach Club is nestled between the Emerald Coast's favorite attractions....the sugar-white sand beaches and thriving woodlands. It features 18 challenging golf holes that wind through the pure white sands, pristine ponds and lush vegetation of Santa Rosa Beach.

Dune Allen is an established community that surrounds Stallworth Lake, one of 17 coastal dune lakes, which are unique to this part of the world. The area’s 17 coastal dune lakes are so rare that they are only found in Walton County and remote portions of Africa and Australia. These waterways have the highest occurrences of rare wildlife species in the state, some of which are found nowhere else in the world. Dune Allen's other coastal dune lake, Oyster Lake, is actually shaped like an oyster shell, and was once filled with oysters. Families who visited Dune Allen for holidays would picnic on its shores, and if the water in the lake was high, the men would dig a trench from the lake to the gulf to lower the water level making it easier to catch fish and gather oysters.

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