Cortez Village may not have Siesta Key’s glitz or Lido Key’s midcentury glamour, but what those other waterfront destinations lack, the “village” (as locals call it) has in droves. Amid a flurry of newcomers and redevelopment, Cortez remains the quirky old fishing village it’s always been.

About five square miles in all, surrounded by water and just minutes from the beaches of Anna Maria Island, Cortez is populated by colorful, humble cottages and their colorful owners, who have known one another for decades. Among the long-timers, Jan Holman, aka “the Sea Hagg,” is an anchor.

“Nothing is straight in Cortez, and we like it that way,” says Holman, who used to own Cortez’s popular Sea Hagg antique shop. After operating the store for 25 years, Holman closed it in 2022 and sold the building, but kept the brand—including the Sea Hagg necklace she always wears, a custom license plate and, now, a 1930 home next door to her own that she’s transformed into a vacation rental she calls the Sea Hagg Inn & Gardens. Holman says she had planned to retire after closing the store, but “that lasted for three days. I don’t sit still.”
The inn, which rents for $500-$650 per night, is an extension of her old shop. The store held every nautical, fishing-adjacent, beachy artifact you could possibly think of, and the reborn Sea Hagg continues that theme. In fact, the store’s original handpainted sign hangs outside.

“It was my choice to close the shop, but I miss it every day,” Holman says. “I’m happy I can continue playing with the things I love.”

Following an auction that saw many of Holman’s nearly 800 items sell as she emptied the Sea Hagg space, she hunted some down to buy back for this latest venture. She even rediscovered its front concrete pillars—studded with coral, stone, pottery, fossils and shells she collected over the years—and put them out front.

Built in 1930, the two-toned blue wood frame home was a complete gut job. Holman replaced the kitchen window with a multi-glass-pane French door. She had the ceiling raised from the customary (and short) 6 feet 6 inches most Cortez cottages have to almost double that in the main room, because, she says, “I love to decorate ceilings.” The change made way for ceiling beams to serve as nooks for a mermaid, an ancient scuba helmet and a wooden ship helm, while an old, thick sailing rope snakes around a beam. The whole thing is lit by new recessed can lights.

Every corner of the inn’s 1,200 square feet holds a nautical curiosity. In a remodeled bathroom, a mirror framed with oyster shells is one of Holman’s handmade creations. In the living room, a turn-of-the-century binnacle that weighs hundreds of pounds sits across from an ancient 4-foot-tall telegraph once used on old ships, and a black wood bead chandelier makes a statement over the dining room table. Just steps away, a delicate antique gold chandelier hangs over a new granite kitchen counter. Somehow, it all works.

There are three bedrooms, and items on display in vintage wooden hutches are for sale, ranging from $50 to $6,000 (an antique binnacle can fetch up to $10,000 on eBay). Outside, the theme is stretched across roughly 3,850 square feet of space strewn with shells and cut through with a pathway. Holman enclosed the carport to create a dining area and its two street-facing wood doors have portholes that mimic a ship’s. The fenced-in yard is lined with native palms, Japanese glass floats, fish models, mermaids and greenery flowing from ancient pottery. Like fine crochet work, fish nets hang delicately from just about everywhere.

A new front porch is finished in glossy black to match the front door. Above it, scalloped shingles that resemble the scales of a fish contrast in rows of dark and light blue—Holman’s favorite color. Above that, Holman’s right-hand man, Steven Russell, added white polka dots to the black cupola that juts up from the roof’s A-frame pinnacle.

You can also find some of Holman’s Old Florida nautical touches at local restaurants, like Owen’s Fish Camp in Lakewood Ranch and Veronica Fish & Oyster in Southside Village, where four of her mermaid corbels pose against its perimeter and a mermaid with a curled tail holds two light globes above the bar inside.

Holman’s collection includes nothing you’d see at a regular home décor store, and visitors are left wondering where she finds all this stuff. Russell, who worked at the old Sea Hagg, says the materials come “from Jan’s gettin’ place.” It’s meant to be a mystery.

“People at the shop would say they loved the energy there and wanted to stay the night,” Holman says. “Now, they can.”

The Sea Hagg Inn & Gardens is located at 4419 123rd St. Court W., Cortez. For more information, call (941) 778-6696 or click here.