The Two Augusts of North Palm Beach

Walk up to the pool at the North Palm Beach Country Club this month and the person at the gate isn't checking a membership card. They're checking your driver's license against a Village address. It's Resident Appreciation Month, and through August 31, anyone who lives inside Village limits swims free during recreational hours, no membership required, just proof that your mail comes here. The Village even points residents to the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's site if they're not sure their address counts.

At Safe Harbor Old Port Cove, the 60-acre marina peninsula includes berths rated for vessels up to 200 feet, a different setting from the Village pool.

The Free Side of the Fence

The Country Club itself has only been in its current form since December 2019, when the Village finished a four-year, $19 million rebuild of the clubhouse that had stood on the site since 1963. What replaced it is a 37,000-square-foot building wrapped around a Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course, a links-style layout with more elevation change than most South Florida courses attempt. Nicklaus, a longtime North Palm Beach resident, is said to have charged the Village $1 to design it. The course carries a Golfweek recognition as one of the state's top municipal layouts, which is an odd thing to say about a course anyone can walk onto and book a tee time at.

Dining at the club runs through Lessing's Hospitality Group, a company with more than 130 years in hospitality, split across three concepts under one roof: the poolside Snack Shack for something quick, the Grill Room for a relaxed sit-down, and The Clubhouse for the full dinner experience with Intracoastal views. The pool itself is a 50-meter L-shaped design with a splash pad, and the ten lighted Har-Tru tennis courts stay booked with clinics and private lessons most of the year.

None of that is new information if you've lived here a while. What changes in August is the price of admission. Resident Appreciation Month strips away the daily guest fee entirely for pool access, and the Village has been explicit that this applies to daily entry only, not to memberships, lessons, or anything beyond the swim window. It's a deliberate, dated policy, not a standing perk, and it disappears the moment the calendar flips to September.

Access at Old Port Cove

Old Port Cove doesn't run on a resident calendar because it isn't a Village facility. It's a private marina, and its 60-acre footprint sits just off U.S. Highway 1 at Coast Guard Channel Marker 27, four miles north of the Lake Worth Inlet with no fixed bridges in between. For anyone piloting a larger vessel, that stretch of open water without a bridge to time is a real operational advantage, one of the reasons boaters moving 100 or 200-foot yachts treat this as a home port rather than a stopover.

The marina recently added Belle's Café on the property, a new dining option for slip holders and their guests that didn't exist a few years ago. Access to the docks themselves runs through slip contracts and marina membership. The August pool policy does not change those marina arrangements; the two facilities operate under different access terms.

Anchorage Aweigh's Tournament History

Anchorage Park is where the town's civic calendar actually lives, and its longest-running fixture is the Anchorage Aweigh Fishing Tournament. The Village lists this as the 19th annual event. Its event page notes that one year was skipped during the Covid shutdown, and the tournament has run across a 20-year span.

The tournament splits into two tracks. Adult anglers put lines in the water at 6 a.m., fishing inshore for trout, sheepshead, and snapper or running offshore for king mackerel, dolphin, wahoo, mutton snapper, and grouper, with weigh-in at the Anchorage Park Marina running from noon to 3 p.m. The Kids Fishing Derby runs separately from 2 to 3 p.m., a catch-and-release event where participants meet at the park gazebo at 1:45, bring their own rod, and get bait provided on site. Awards go out in an 8-and-under group and a 9-to-15 group. Everyone, adults and kids alike, ends up back at the park for a 5 p.m. cookout, awards ceremony, and raffle.

Earlier this summer, the same park hosted Dog Days of Summer, part of a steady rhythm of recreation department programming that runs through the warmer months. None of it requires a Village ID at the door. Anchorage Park's community events remain open without the marina's contract-based access arrangements.

What the Village Actually Wants Boat Owners Doing Before September

The Village Police Department has been putting out a specific advisory this season aimed at boat owners: electronics theft from docks, home slips, and marinas has picked up, with depth finders, radios, and GPS units the most common targets. The department's recommendations are practical rather than generic:

• Bolt electronics into place rather than securing them with tap screws, using the mounting brackets most manufacturers make for this purpose
• Cover the boat and equipment when not in use
• Install a wifi camera or a Ring-style system near the dock or slip
• Photograph equipment and log serial numbers now, because officers can't enter stolen electronics into a recovery database without one

That last point matters more than it sounds. A stolen depth finder without a recorded serial number is effectively unrecoverable even if police find it. The advisory lands during the stretch of hurricane season the Village has flagged as running from June 1 through November 30, and it's the kind of notice that only reaches people who are actually signed up for Village communications rather than searching generic "things to do" content.

Access Across North Palm Beach in August

In August, the Country Club pool is open to anyone with a Village address under the temporary Resident Appreciation policy. Anchorage Park has no admission charge, while marina access continues under its usual arrangements. The pool offer ends after August 31.

If the rhythm of this place, free pool days, a marina with its own access arrangements, a fishing tournament old enough to have a real history, is starting to feel like something you want on a more permanent basis, that's a conversation worth having early. Reback Realty has been watching North Palm Beach's docks, fairways, and neighborhoods since 1975, and we can talk you through what a property here actually costs to hold, not just to buy. Request a Confidential Home Valuation whenever you're ready to see where you'd land.