Alva sits on the Caloosahatchee in the far northeast of Lee County, on SR 80 between Lehigh Acres and Fort Denaud. It has a genuine history: the 1909 library was the first in what is now Lee County, and it survives along with a 1901 chapel as a museum.
It is rural and large-lot, around twenty-seven hundred residents across seventeen square miles. The river is the risk here rather than the Gulf, and a good share of the work involves outbuildings alongside the house.