Sarasota Bay Club residents in this month’s Scene magazine

Living the good life... at any age

By Ryan G. Van Cleave

Meet four retirees who do much more than pass time at the beautiful Sarasota Bay Club. They’re all living life to the fullest – teaching, studying, dancing and thriving. 

Ursula Pearson doesn’t act her age. She loves to dance. She participates in a poetry club. She writes short memoir-like essays. She’s quick-witted, spry, and a dazzling conversationalist (in multiple languages). Imagine how surprised people are to learn that she’ll turn 101 just before Christmas.

Sarasota has been attracting active, aging people like Pearson from all over the world for decades. The draw? The beaches. The weather. The art and cultural climate. The lack of traffic. The people. And just when you think you’ve identified all the reasons retirees love our area, you hear another one and think, “Yes, that’s a terrific thing about our city, too.”

Pearson came to Miami with her physician husband in 1936. “We watched that little city grow and grow,” she says. That’s the same potential she sensed about Sarasota, too, when a physician friend urged them to come visit in 1967 for the 4th of July weekend. They immediately fell in love with the area, and not just because they realized how many people they already knew. It wasn’t long before they divested themselves of her husband’s Miami practice and moved to Longboat Key...