Naples Pier

About Naples Pier

By the ULTIMATE Miami Editorial Team

The Naples Pier has stood at the end of 12th Avenue South since 1888. It is closed while it is rebuilt after Hurricane Ian, but the beach beside it is still where the whole town watches the sun go down.

The pier that made a town

Naples was founded in 1886 by John Stuart Williams, a former Confederate general and Kentucky senator, and his partner Walter N. Haldeman, the Louisville newspaper publisher. Promoters said the bay surpassed the Bay of Naples in Italy, and the name stuck. In 1888, with about eighty residents, the little settlement opened its pier, and the first hotel followed a year later.

In those early years there was no road and no railway, so the pier was the front door of the town: freight and passengers came and went by boat. It has been battered and rebuilt after hurricanes more than once. After Hurricane Ian in 2022 the city began a full rebuild in January 2026, with a raised deck and stronger pilings, and the pier is closed until the work is finished, with a reopening targeted around mid-2027.

The pier opened in 1888, when Naples had about eighty residents: it came before the roads, the railway and almost everything else.

What to do

While the work goes on, watch from the sand: bottlenose dolphins often pass close to the shore here, and pelicans and ospreys patrol the beach. The beach on either side stays open, with walkways round the construction zone at Broad Avenue South and 13th Avenue South; some nearby parking, restrooms and showers are reduced during the works.

The beach on either side is the city’s main strand, soft white sand that runs north and south as far as you care to walk. The historic district behind it, with Palm Cottage and the old cottages of 12th Avenue South, rewards a short detour.

Sunset, the main event

Every clear evening a crowd gathers on the sand to watch the sun drop into the Gulf, and many people applaud when it disappears. Come early in winter, and look for the brief green flash on the horizon on very clear evenings.

Our advice: arrive forty minutes before sunset, walk the beach north towards Lowdermilk Park or south towards Gordon Pass, and stay on the sand to watch the sky change colour long after the sun has gone.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Naples Pier before you go.