Ask about buying at Kaiya Beach Resort and someone will eventually quote you a price per square foot. It sounds like a clean number: pay this much, get this many finished square feet in a beach community with a gallery, a wellness program, and a name-brand architecture pedigree. It isn't clean. The published range for the community sits between $1,335 and $1,585 per square foot for closed and active listings, but the current inventory tells a more complicated story, and the gap between the average and the actual listing prices is where the real transaction risk lives.
Here's the friction a buyer needs to understand before writing an offer: owning a home at Kaiya does not automatically make you a member of the Kaiya Club. The beach house, the seaside infinity pool, the 250 feet of serviced beachfront, all of it sits behind a membership that's separate from the deed. You apply for it. You may or may not be accepted. And every resale in the community carries a Kaiya Foundation fee equal to half a percent of the purchase price, a permanent cost layered onto ownership that doesn't show up in the square-footage math most buyers do first.
That's the frame for everything else worth knowing about this community right now.
Kaiya groups its homes into collections: Strand (beachfront villas), Preserve (villas set back among protected woods), Mews (row houses), and Kaiya Club Residences (the condominium-style product, built with a grand lobby and rooftop pool). This year's published listing data gives a useful snapshot of what each collection is actually asking, not what the blended community average implies.
| Collection | Beds/Baths | Size | List Price | Price Per Sq Ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MEWS 16 | 3/3 | 2,496 sq ft | $3.4M | ~$1,362 |
| Preserve (Villa Amalaya 53, Villa Aashaya 52) | 4/5 | 3,978–4,200 sq ft | $5.78M–$6.09M | ~$1,450 |
| Kaiya Club Residences 308 | 3/3 | 2,014 sq ft | $3.8M | ~$1,887 |
The row house product, Mews, prices at the low end of the community's stated range. The villa product, Preserve, sits close to the middle. The condo-style Club Residences, the smallest unit on this list by nearly 2,000 square feet, prices at roughly $1,887 per square foot, about nineteen percent above the top of the community's own quoted active range.
That's not a size story. It's a convenience story. Club Residences are the condominium product, built with a grand lobby and a private rooftop pool as part of the structure itself, the type of unit marketed on lock-and-leave ease rather than acreage. Buyers are paying a premium for that packaged convenience, which raises an obvious question: how much of the amenity package around it actually exists yet?
Kaiya's hospitality anchor is Oyom Hotel and Spa, described on the resort's own site as a 30-suite sanctuary with a farm-to-table restaurant, a courtyard pool, a rooftop terrace, and a spa. The same page lists the opening date as to be announced. That's worth sitting with. When CoralTree Hospitality took over management of the property in 2023, the company's own announcement targeted a late 2025 opening for the boutique inn. As of this year, that date has come and gone with no firm replacement on the books.
Recent coverage from the Times-Picayune adds a wrinkle: it describes the incoming Oyom as a 40-suite expansion with a 4,000-square-foot spa and fitness center, a larger footprint than the 30 suites still listed on Kaiya's own site. Two official-adjacent sources, two different suite counts, and no confirmed date. That's not a scandal. It's a normal feature of a phased resort still under construction. But it means a buyer evaluating Kaiya today should treat the hospitality program as a plan in motion, not a finished amenity they're purchasing alongside their unit.
The same caution applies to smaller details. Kaiya's own FAQ states there is currently no operating on-site fitness center, even though the Oyom marketing pages describe one as part of the build. Right now, yoga and personal training are arranged through the concierge team instead. None of that is disqualifying. It just means the gap between what's marketed and what's operating today is wider than a glossy site tends to suggest, and that gap is exactly what a buyer is pricing in when they pay above the community average for a Club Residence built around amenities still being finished.
Kaiya's branding leans on beachfront identity, and it's easy to assume every address in the community sits on the sand. It doesn't. Later reporting on the property breaks the site into two connected pieces: roughly 26 acres on the north side of 30A, where most of the homes sit, and a narrow two-acre beachfront strand to the south, where the Beach House and a select run of villas are located. The earlier developer materials describe the whole footprint as about 28 acres with more than a third dedicated to green space, which reconciles with the two-part breakdown once you account for parks, wetlands, and trails woven through the north parcel.
The takeaway for a buyer comparing product types: Strand Villas, the highest-priced collection in the community by a wide margin, occupy that narrow beachfront strip, which is part of why that collection's per-square-foot pricing runs well above everything else on the list. Preserve sits at the north end among the protected woods, closer to trails than tide lines. If beach frontage is the reason you're considering Kaiya at all, confirm which side of 30A your specific unit sits on before you get attached to a floor plan.
Kaiya's architecture comes from Khoury Vogt Architects, the same firm behind Alys Beach next door, and the resemblance is intentional. White masonry, geometric precision, a restrained coastal palette. The visual kinship invites a direct comparison, and it's worth making, because Alys Beach isn't a plan anymore. It's a delivered product, with more than $100 million in built amenities already operating, including roughly 1,500 feet of private beach, Caliza Pool and Restaurant, and a 15,000-square-foot wellness and racquet facility.
A buyer paying close to $1,887 per square foot for a Kaiya Club Residence is paying in the neighborhood of what a fully mature, fully delivered community next door commands, for a resort where the anchor hotel has no confirmed opening date and the fitness center doesn't exist yet. That doesn't make Kaiya a bad purchase. Jason Romair, the New Orleans developer behind the project, has been building toward this vision for roughly a decade, since first acquiring the land, a former peach farm, and construction has moved steadily since it began about five years ago, with the resort opening in 2024. The vision is real and the architecture is already built. But a vision in progress and a finished neighborhood are not the same asset, even when they're priced close to each other.
One more caution before quoting anyone Kaiya's per-square-foot range as gospel: only seven properties have sold in the entire community over the trailing twelve months. A market that thin means a single transaction, a motivated seller or an unusually large unit, can swing the average meaningfully. Treat the published range as directional, not precise, and ask for the specific comparable sales behind any number an agent quotes you, not just the blended figure.
Does buying a home at Kaiya include Kaiya Club membership? No. Club membership, which covers the Beach House, the infinity pool, and beachfront service, is a separate application process from the property purchase. Confirm membership status and any associated dues before you assume access comes with the deed.
Is every home at Kaiya actually on the beach? No. The bulk of the community's roughly 26 acres sits north of Scenic Highway 30A. Direct beach frontage is concentrated in a narrow two-acre strand to the south, where the Beach House and the Strand Villas collection are located.
When will Oyom Hotel and Spa open? As of this year, Kaiya's own site lists the opening date as to be announced, more than a year past the late 2025 target CoralTree Hospitality announced when it took over management in 2023.
Kaiya rewards a buyer who wants architecture and a long-term vision more than a finished amenity list on day one. If you're weighing that trade against a fully delivered community, or trying to figure out what a specific unit's price per square foot actually reflects, The Spears Group can walk you through the current listing data unit by unit. Request a complimentary market valuation and luxury marketing plan before you make an offer on a plan still being built.
Office 2048 West County Hwy 30A #107 Santa Rosa Beach FL 32459
Office 2048 West County Hwy 30A #107 Santa Rosa Beach FL 32459