Bay Tree Lodge on Sewall's Point - What A Company Benefit!

I drove past the Bay Tree Lodge Estate on Sewall's Point, located between the St. Lucie and Indian Rivers just to the east of Stuart, Florida, yesterday afternoon, and took the photograph on the left of one of the cottages. There were private property signs at the entrance, and so I was hesitant to walk onto the property itself to photograph the actual lodge and risk winding up doing hard time here in Florida. I suspect that would not be good. In any case, the Bay Tree Lodge was built in 1909, sitting on land above the St. Lucie River, and was purchased by Willard Kiplinger in 1952. Kiplinger was the founder of Kiplinger Washington Letters, which most famously produces The Kiplinger Letter, a weekly known for its business forecasts and personal financial advice. Kiplinger was originally going to purchase the estate as a private winter residence, but his accountant convinced him to have his company buy it and make it a vacation retreat for the employees and retirees of the company (and also, make it a tax-deductible business expense). And this meant all the employees, not just top executives and journalists.

Those employees and retirees were able to make reservations and stay at the Bay Tree Inn for two weeks every year, divided up however they wanted. When Willard Kiplinger died, his son Austin and his siblings inherited the company and the estate and kept Bay Tree Lodge as a year-round vacation retreat for Kiplinger employees and retirees. Knight Kiplinger, the son of Austin, wrote about his first visit to Bay Tree back in 1954 when he was six years old, and it seems to have made quite the impression on him. Kiplinger still lives at Bay Tree Lodge and is involved in developing a major mixed-use development with "traditional neighborhood design" called Newfield, in nearby Palm City. Kiplinger Washington Letters, by the way, was sold to Dennis Publishing in 2019, and since then only former employees with 20 years at the company are still able to stay at Bay Tree. But what a wonderful benefit while it lasted. If only the University of Denver Bookstore had purchased a vacation retreat while I worked there and offered the same type of benefit - perhaps a villa in the South of France. I wonder if the university would have noticed if we had done that? I did the books, after all. Just another miscellaneous expense, right?