About Brightwater
Brightwater is a gated community of 379 single-family homes in North Fort Myers. Day to day, the nearest golf course, Verandah Golf Club, is about 4.8 miles straight-line from the community's center; the nearest library, North Fort Myers Public Library, is about 5.4 miles away; the nearest hospital, Select Specialty Hospital, about 7.1 miles.
Amenities — master-planned community amenities developed and operated in connection with Metro Development Group's Crystal Lagoons program; the 55+ sub-neighborhood, The Shores at Brightwater, has its own dedicated 55+ amenity center separate from the master community's amenities — include a roughly six-acre Crystal Lagoon with a sandy beach, swim-up bar, waterslide and splash pad, Cabana Cove, an event lawn/amphitheater area used for food-truck nights and community events, miles of community trails, a dog park, a dedicated 55+ amenity center serving The Shores at Brightwater, gated entry and StreetLeaf solar-powered street lighting.
On paper, the community spans evacuation zones A · B · C · D.
Brightwater is Lee County's first Crystal Lagoons community, a master-planned neighborhood in North Fort Myers built by Metro Development Group around a roughly six-acre man-made lagoon with a sandy beach, a swim-up bar, a waterslide and a splash pad. Rather than one homebuilder, Brightwater is being built out by several national builders working inside Metro Development Group's master plan — D.R. Horton, Lennar, DRB Homes, M/I Homes and Pulte have all built product here — which means home styles, price points and even sub-neighborhood amenities can vary meaningfully depending on which builder and which section of Brightwater a given listing sits in.
Age restriction is one of the clearest examples of that variation. The master Brightwater community is all-ages and marketed as a family-oriented lagoon lifestyle destination, but one gated sub-neighborhood within it, The Shores at Brightwater, is a separate 55-and-older active-adult section built by D.R. Horton's Freedom Homes division, complete with its own dedicated 55+ amenity center apart from the master community's lagoon and trail system. Metro Development Group's own site labels that section "Gated 55+ Active Adult" and currently shows it as sold out. A buyer specifically looking for age-restricted housing needs to confirm which section a listing falls in, since the rules genuinely differ by neighborhood rather than applying uniformly across all of Brightwater.
Governance is worth understanding plainly before making an offer. The Brightwater Master Homeowners Association, Inc. was filed with the State of Florida in October 2015 and amended and renamed in 2018 (Sunbiz Document No. N15000010020). Every officer currently on record is listed care of Kai, the Tampa-based property management company that runs the association's day-to-day operations and resident portal, rather than at individual resident addresses — a pattern consistent with a still-building master-planned community where board control has not yet passed to homeowners. Under Florida law, a developer retains control of an association's board until a statutory turnover threshold is met, so buyers should ask Kai or Metro Development Group directly about the current turnover timeline. Beyond the HOA, Brightwater also carries a separate Community Development District (CDD) that finances infrastructure like roads and drainage through the property tax bill — a second, distinct cost line from HOA dues that's worth budgeting for separately.
Beyond the signature lagoon, Brightwater's shared amenities include Cabana Cove, an event lawn used for food-truck nights and community gatherings, miles of trails, a dog park, gated entry and StreetLeaf solar-powered street lighting, on top of whatever amenities a given builder includes within its own product line. On the records side, Lee County GIS places the community across a wide mix of evacuation zones (A through D) and a flood profile that runs roughly 53 percent AE, with the remainder split across shaded-X, standard-X and a small trace zone — flood insurance costs can differ significantly parcel to parcel, so check the specific address. Fire coverage comes from the Bayshore Fire District, water and electricity are both provided through Lee County Utilities, and Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) is about 14 straight-line miles away. Twelve months of qualified county sales data across the community's current boundary show 59 recorded transactions with a median price of about $390,000, ranging roughly from $275,000 to $625,000 (Lee County GIS, checked September 2026). Confirm current HOA dues, CDD assessments, age-restriction boundaries and community rules directly with Kai or the relevant builder's sales office; this page is an independent, records-based starting point and is not affiliated with the association, Metro Development Group, Kai or any builder.
HOA & community contacts
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