BEST DESIGN LEGACY
In this 5,500-square-foot home on Third Street North, the first impression is not about one focal point—though there’s plenty to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ over—it’s about, well, the impression. There’s a glassed-in study just past the front door where Poliform built-ins lend gravitas behind a desk with black-lacquer legs. A sweep through the great room reveals perfectly proportioned furniture; the touch of a button changes the lighting inside and out, drawing the eye past the pool to a well-appointed guest cabana. A slab of Calacatta marble on the kitchen wall is offset by bright-white, modern Poliform cabinets, its bronze and gold veining echoed in a chandelier here, a side table there. “The sum of the parts is better than the whole,” says Mark Wilson, CEO of London Bay. “You get the impact as you come through the front door.”
This year, London Bay celebrates 35 years in business. Mark started the company building single-family luxury homes and is now one of the region’s major builder-developers. He credits his success to his team and their integrated approach. “From the beginning, I saw myself as a sort of conductor of the orchestra of design,” he says. “We were the first in the luxury home space to step back and say, ‘What if you integrate architecture and interior design and do it all very well’?”
Mark moved to Florida from England in 1984, with an MBA and undergraduate building engineering degree in hand and a plan to work in commercial development. But, the savings and loans crisis created a difficult market, so he stepped back and looked around. “I felt there was a hole in the luxury end of the residential market,” he says. Mark found many of the area’s high-end homes leaned heavily on Tuscan tropes, with minimal indoor-outdoor flow and attention to detail.
With a European eye for contemporary aesthetics and Old World craftsmanship, Mark and his wife, Gemma, built their first spec home in Fort Myers—the most expensive model ever built in the city back then. The house sold immediately, generating new business and momentum. By the early 2000s, they’d acquired Romanza Interior Design and added an architectural division. Within the next decade, they’d become a go-to builder for master-planned communities like Mediterra and Quail West and expanded into multi-family developments. All the while, they kept building increasingly sophisticated homes throughout Port Royal and Old Naples.
While many high-end builders tout customization, London Bay operates in a more nuanced space. The team is quick to clarify that they don’t do production housing—their communities are intentionally small in scale and spec homes, like the one on Third Street North, are conceived with a living, breathing client in mind (often, Mark himself). Architects sketch the plans, and the in-house Romanza Interior Design team conceives interiors with the same intentionality as a private commission.
Across their portfolio, a unifying aesthetic emerges: clean-lined architecture, tailored proportions, and interiors that favor warm neutrals and natural textures. For many buyers, the cohesiveness is part of the appeal. But, projects like the Third Street North estate and the upcoming The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Estero Bay, show the range possible when the team flexes its creative muscle.
In many ways, the Old Naples home harkens to where it all began—refining the speculative model that first put London Bay on the map into something wholly elevated, where design, architecture and lifestyle planning move in sync. This time, it started with a vacant, overgrown lot that had been sitting on the market—narrow, with no water view and little curb appeal. But Mark saw potential where others didn’t. “I don’t think people appreciated how deep it was,” he says. Rather than follow convention and build a long, narrow home pushed to the rear, they flipped the script—placing a pool at the center of the lot and designing a series of outdoor living areas around it. The result feels immersive and intentional, with every part of the home engaging the outdoors.
Photography by Dan Cutrona
Photography by Dan Cutrona
Photography by Dan Cutrona
Photography by Dan Cutrona
Photography by Dan Cutrona
Photography by Dan Cutrona
Photography by Dan Cutrona
Photography by Mike Anderson
The team worked with sought-after landscape designer Koby Kirwin to turn the central pool into a lifestyle focal point. Wrapped around it are distinct yet interconnected outdoor spaces, including a kitchen and lounge lanai with a Dekton waterfall-edge counter, Evo grill and dual TVs, and a dining pavilion with a sculptural sea fan coral screen. On one side of the pool, the home’s primary suite spills onto a terrace paved in Irish-blue limestone. In another stretch, a guest cabana stands like its own retreat, complete with a living room, wet bar, private deck and morning kitchen. “We laugh and say that you only need to bring your toothbrush to move in,” Mark says.
The interiors of the two-story, four-bedroom home were conceived by senior design director Jennifer Stevens, who has been with Romanza for 25 years. She and her team work in lockstep with London Bay’s architects to ensure visual continuity from structure to styling. In the foyer, a wall of walnut paneling with slim bronze insets rises into and across the ceiling, introducing the home’s quiet rhythm of generous proportions and restrained materiality. Underfoot, oversized 4-by-4-foot porcelain tiles extend across the great room in long, uninterrupted planes—reinforcing London Bay’s instinct for proportion, where volume serves flow, not spectacle. The tones throughout—elm, oak and walnut woods; warm metallic accents; whites and taupes punctuated with black and navy—represent design-forward taste with a universal appeal. “We don’t need to be on the bleeding edge of trends, but the leading edge,” Mark says.
Throughout the home, guest-friendly spaces are balanced with discrete nooks. “You want areas in the house to entertain, and it’s lovely to be around people, but sometimes you just want a bit of quiet or privacy. And ideally, you have that both inside and outside,” Mark says. The study off the entry, for instance: “It’s open and has tons of light coming into it, and you can see those lovely built-ins, but if someone is working and they’re on the phone, or they just want to sit and read a book and have a little peace and quiet, they can close the door.” A media nook off the great room and breakfast area near the upstairs guest suites offer similar tranquil moments.
The same orchestration—the idea that good design accounts for how people really live—extends to London Bay’s community-scale developments. Their current flagship, Saltleaf on Estero Bay, signals their most ambitious move into vertical development, where everyday life flows easily between nature, recreation and home. Walking trails connect to a golf preserve and marina, while a pair of The Ritz-Carlton Residences’ towers, rising 22 floors, offer sweeping views of mangroves and Gulf waters. The first tower is slated to open in spring 2026, and future plans call for villas and additional towers.
Here, miles away from the region’s established wealth corridors, Mark once again recognized an untapped potential. With this project, they’re not just participating in Southwest Florida’s upscale evolution but setting the pace by extending ultra-luxury living into Lee County. “We’re able to create a new waterfront luxury lifestyle in an area that no one even thought about 10 years ago,” Mark says. On Fort Myers Beach, where the company debuted Grandview on Bay Beach in 2023, the firm recently paused plans to redevelop the former Outrigger site, following voiced concerns from town staff. The move speaks to the company's emphasis on growth that respects local context. Instead of forcing the issue, London Bay paused the application, opting for community consensus over confrontation—a move that speaks to the company’s long-term vision for growth that respects local context.
As Southwest Florida enters a defining era of growth and London Bay plays a defining role, Mark is reflecting on the long view. Building communities with staying power, shaped by purpose and possibility. “We’re not creating these spaces for today or tomorrow, but thinking about how they’ll fit in 20, 50 years from now—long after I’m gone,” he says. “With this opportunity comes great responsibility.”