Most buyers ask me the same question at the end of a viewing: what is it actually like to live here? So here is a Saturday in Coconut Grove, the way I would spend it if I lived at Grove House. You will not need a car once.
8am: coffee under the banyans
Start at Banyan Coffee, four minutes from the front door. Sit outside, under the trees that give the neighbourhood its shade and most of its character. The Grove wakes up slowly, which is the point.
The streets here were laid out long before air conditioning, so they follow the shade. Walk on the north side in the morning and the south side after lunch, and you will barely feel the heat.
9:30am: the bay
From the coffee shop it is a short walk down to the water. The bayfront path runs past the marina and the park, with the city on one side and Key Biscayne on the horizon. In the early morning it belongs to runners, dog walkers and a few people fishing off the wall.
If you have children, Kennedy Park is eight minutes from Grove House. The playground is shaded, and there is a fitness trail along the water for anyone who would rather move than sit.
11am: the village
Back up the hill, the village centre is small enough to cross in ten minutes and full enough to fill a morning. There is a Saturday market for fruit, flowers and bread, a bookshop that still has a reading chair, and the kind of hardware store that has the one screw you need.
The Grove is the only place in Miami where I have been late for a meeting because I stopped to talk to a neighbour.
2pm: lunch, then nothing
Lunch at Grove Table, then go home. Seriously. The best part of a Saturday at Grove House is the afternoon on the loggia, when the building shades itself and the breeze comes up from the bay. It is what the whole building was designed around.
7pm: dinner on a side street
Coconut Grove does dinner well and quietly. The Corner Wine Bar has a short list of small plates and a long list of wines, and tables on the pavement under string lights. Walk home the long way, past the old wooden houses on the side streets.
What this means if you are buying
Everything above is within a fifteen-minute walk of Grove House. Our area guide on the neighbourhood page lists walking and driving times to schools, the bay and the financial district, so you can test a weekday as well as a weekend.
If you would like to try it in person, book a viewing for a Saturday morning. I will meet you at the sales gallery with a coffee and the map.
