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Hoping to parlay its reputation for swanky accommodations and white-glove service, the RitzCarlton is diving in to uncharted waters on the shores of Jupiter.
Sales began this month at Atlanta-based Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co.'s first single-family home development.
The 315-acre community off Donald Ross Road will test the luxury brand's marketability in the boom-or-bust world of home building. Success in Palm Beach County could trigger more developments across the nation.
The Ritz-Carlton community in Jupiter is compromised of four synergistic prongs:
* 20 custom-designed estate homes
* 34 single-family residences
* 67 limited-ownership, detached cottages
* golf club and full-service spa.
There is no hotel, another first for the chain, which began building condos paired with its hotels in recent years.
The sales' kicker for all its for-sale products is that residents get the same pampering, services and elegance at home as they get at the hotel.
"We will have a staff on 24/7 to take care of any kind of need you might have,"said Bob Phillips, VP of Ritz-Carlton Club, the fractional ownership division. "It is one thing to be a resident of a gated community and be waved in by a rented security guard and quite another to drive into a Ritz-Carlton community to be greeted and welcomed home by our staff."
Goals set high
But applying the same service model to home owners as...