Article from The Santiva Chronicle
January 26, 2025
by SC Reporter Emilie Alfino

Island Insider: Toni Halski

Someone once said life is like a game of tennis: you can’t win without serving. Serving is part of what Toni Halski has been doing for his 43 years on Sanibel.

Toni has been the owner of Beachview Tennis Club for the past 14 years and sees it as more than just a tennis club, as do his clients Suzy Kehne and Harry Brown.

“Immediately after Ian, Toni and his staff made extraordinary efforts to get his courts and business rebuilt, bringing people together for the physical activity and social interaction that is such a necessary part of our recovery as a community,” they wrote. “He is one of the Sanibel Strong. He personifies the resilience we all want to possess.” Long before Ian, Toni created an enthusiastic, positive, and inclusive tennis environment for full- and part-time residents and visitors of all ages and skill levels, bringing people together in a fulfilling community.

Prior to the Beachview Tennis Club, Toni, who grew up in Northeast, Georgia, was at the Sundial Beach Resort for 28 years, where he ran the program and was able to meet a lot of the island residents. When the opportunity came up at Beachview, he jumped on it.

“You don’t have to answer to anyone else, your positions and decisions are strictly yours, and the buck starts and stops here,” Toni said. “It’s more responsibility, but with the experience I’ve had, I’ve pretty much seen everything that can happen and know how to deal with it.”

Toni still teaches. “It’s a good form of exercise, it’s a way to stay healthy and earn a living too,” he explained.

So how does tennis help with recovery from a hurricane as devastating as Ian?

“After the hurricane, there was no business on the island, it was basically an island full of debris,” Toni said. “We started Day One cleaning the property up. I hired work crews to come in and rebuild the courts. My daughter Hayley came in and we refurbished the pro shop. We had 3-1/2 feet of storm surge inside the building. We pretty much put it back together at the same time the court construction guys were doing the courts. Within three months, January 1, we were back open for business. We were the only business that was open, and it gave people an opportunity to socialize and get necessary exercise, and it helped the morale of the island.”

People asked Toni why he was in “such a rush” to rebuild when there wasn’t going to be anybody around. He said, like the movie, “If you build it, they will come. Basically, we rebuilt it and they came back. It was our regulars and other people who played at other clubs coming to play here, too. So, it was a mixture. I wasn’t surprised. Because it’s important to people, to me, to the entire island.”

There have been other challenges since Ian. Hurricanes Helene and Milton also caused damage, but Toni and his team quickly restored the courts so there was very little down time.

Asked whether he’s had thoughts of leaving Sanibel, Toni said he’s here “for the duration. A lot of people I’ve known for a long time pulled the plug and moved elsewhere. It’s sad, but I don’t fault them for it. Not everybody is in the same position I’m in.”

Toni’s home had some damage from Ian, but he was fortunate enough to be able to move back into it while he was restoring the business. He lives just two miles from the Club. “It was convenient for me to come to work every day.”

Beachview Tennis Club is strictly tennis, no pickleball. “A lot of my members have switched over to pickleball, but I feel like it’s important to have a facility that is just tennis. A lot of tennis people don’t like the sound of a pickleball being hit. This is kind of a refuge for tennis players,” Toni explained.

“It’s been a long process to get back to where the island was,” Toni continued. “You still don’t see a lot of tourists, but we’ll gradually recover and become what it once was. It may take another two, three years, but it’s coming.”

Being on Sanibel 43 years, people ask Toni all the time if he’s seen a lot of changes over the years. “Quite frankly, the island hasn’t changed that much. Small cottages have been torn down and big homes replaced them, and the people grow older and move on and new younger ones take their place,” he said. “The big changes are when you go over the bridge. When I got here, there were hardly any roads or people but now Lee County has almost a million residents – that’s where the big changes have occurred.”

“There are a lot of things I love about Sanibel,” Toni said. “The water, the beaches, being able to go out and fish, golf on a daily basis, not worrying about freezing, the natural beauty, it’s a special place. My goal in my business life has been to make people happy. If they’re happy, then I feel like I’ve done my job.”