CRANDON PARK

Once the site of Miami’s zoo, Crandon Park is now Miami-Dade County’s mother of all parks. The Park offers a world-class tennis center, one of the finest public golf courses in the country, Miami’s best-known public beach, a marina and Calusa Park, which includes a community playhouse and children’s playground. In short, it’s quite a place.

The Crandon Park Tennis Center, built on the site of a former landfill, is the home of the Ericsson Open tennis championships, a huge springtime professional tennis extravaganza started in Delray Beach by Butch Buchholz. The tournament moved to Boca Raton then to Key Biscayne in 1987, where it found its permanent home. The tournament is the fifth-largest pro tennis event, ranking just behind the grand slam events, and brings together the top pros from the Women’s Tennis Association and the Association of Tennis Professionals. The center also is home to the United States Tennis Association’s player development program headquarters,

The stadium court has 7,500 permanent seats and can add 6,500 temporary seats for tournaments. It also offers sponsor suites and all the other furnishings and offices necessary to conduct top-notch tournaments in style. The stadium court also offers complete wheelchair accommodations.

But when the pros are playing elsewhere, the center is open to the public and offers individual and league play as well as a variety of lessons. The courts are open daily from 8am to 10pm. The center features 17 Laykold hard courts, four European red clay, four American green clay courts and two grass courts. Six of the hard courts are lighted for night play. Hard courts may be rented for $3 per person per hour during the day and $5 per person per hour at night. Clay courts may be rented for $6 per person per hour during the daylight hours only.

Crandon Park Beach is much more than just a strip of sand and lots of water, but the two miles of beach there are revered as one of America’s great beaches. But there also are baseball and softball diamonds, soccer fields and an amusement center that includes an open-air roller rink and a 1949 restored Coney Island-style carousel. Both were features of the old Crandon Park zoo and were shut down when the zoo moved to southwestern Miami-Dade County in 1972. The rink has been refurbished and volunteers restored and repainted the carousel. Other features of the amusement area include a large children’s playground, splash fountain, concessions and restrooms. The beaches are open from 8am to 8pm daily and the parking fee is $3.50. The amusement center is open from 10am to 7pm.

Crandon Park Golf Course is simply one of the South’s finest public courses, built in an uncommonly beautiful spot. The coconut palm-lined course is built tough and maintained to exacting standards that make it suitable as the host course for the Royal Caribbean Classic, a PGA Seniors event. Designed by Robert Hagge and Bruce Devlin in 1972, it measures par 72, 7,180 yards from the championship tees. It opens and closes with brutally tough holes. No.1 is 549 yards a dogleg par five that covers land, mangrove swamp and water before reaching the green. No.18, at 521 yards, can catch golfers unaware as they look out over the expanse of Biscayne Bay, which borders the fairway. But the nastiest hole is the evil No.4, a 638-yard par 5 that seems to stretch on forever.

Rates vary by season and time of day.

Crandon Park Marina offers a wide variety of supplies and services to boaters and can accommodate vessels up to 80 feet. Anglers can buy bait and tackle here and can charter or rent boats.

The Biscayne Nature Center schedules walks, hayrides and other activities.

Crandon Park Tennis Center

Address: 7300 Crandon Boulevard
Key Biscayne, FL 33149
Phone: (305) 365-2302

Crandon Park Beach and Amusement Center

Address: 4000 Crandon Boulevard
Phone: (305) 361-7385 and 361-5421
Beachwalkers Club: (305) 361-7373.

Crandon Park Golf Course

Address: 6700 Crandon Blvd.
Phone: (305) 361-9129

Crandon Park Marina

Address: 4000 Crandon Blvd.
Phone: (305) 361-1281

Biscayne Nature Center

Address: 4000 Crandon Blvd.
Phone: (305) 642-9600