South Cocoanut Bayou is a small bayfront neighborhood on the north end of Siesta Key, within the City of Sarasota in Sarasota County, in ZIP 34242. It is organized around the Cocoanut Bayou Association, a voluntary, non-profit Florida association tied to the original platting, which local sources date to the late 1940s and 1950s when Atlanta developer Elbridge S. Boyd and Siesta Properties laid out the enclave around a sheltered mangrove bayou off Roberts Bay (Cocoanut Bayou Association and local neighborhood guides, 2024 to 2026).
The housing is a deliberate mix of original 1950s era beach bungalows, several with nostalgic pecky-cypress interiors, alongside large rebuilt and new estate homes, on home sites described as three-quarter-acre and larger. Many parcels carry private docks on the shallow, seagrass-rich bayou, and the association historically holds a deeded, walk-in beach access for member homes on nearby Siesta Key beach. Confirm dock rights, association membership, and beach access for any specific parcel.
Because this is a barrier-island enclave, the money is made or lost on the parcel and an honest coastal read: ground and finished-floor elevation, the FEMA flood zone, surge exposure, the condition of the seawall and dock, and an insurance and wind-mitigation quote on the exact address. The 2024 hurricane season, with Helene and then Milton making a direct Siesta Key landfall, underlined how parcel-specific that exposure is.
The pitch is a rare, quiet, deep-water-access bayfront pocket minutes from Siesta Key beach and a short drive to downtown Sarasota. The work is verifying elevation, flood zone, insurance, dock, and association details before you fall for a setting, because on the north end of a barrier island those carrying and rebuild numbers decide the outcome.
