BOCA GRANDE — With the bridge toll recently increased to $5 and the median sales price for single family homes in the millions, many people can’t afford to drive onto Gasparilla Island, let alone live there.

But the management at Gasparilla Inn and Club, the island’s historic landmark, hopes to tamp down the aura of seclusion and inaccessibility surrounding the town with a Community Open House on Oct. 20.

Free food samples will be the big attraction in Gasparilla Inn’s kitchen from 5 to 7 p.m., with kitchen staff on hand to shmooze with guests.

The open house has become an annual tradition, held when the inn reopens for the season after being closed each summer.

Staff cleaned windows and put finishing touches on the grand front porch Thursday in anticipation of its 97th season, which starts Oct. 21.

The inn will reopen with air conditioning and a new pastry shop as part of a multi-phase kitchen renovation that will continue in coming years.

Promised an air-conditioned kitchen when he came on board a year ago, executive chef Peter Timmins said it has helped create a more productive environment.

In the pastry shop, chefs will whip up such delights as Raspberry Cardinal and traditional bread pudding.

“It’s important to have a mystique and the inn has such a rich heritage, which we fully embrace,” said Jack Damioli, inn president and general manager. “But over the years, there has been a lot of misconceptions that you couldn’t come over here; that it was private. It isn’t.”

Timmins reflected on the changes at the inn over the past year saying, “Most of changes we implemented with food style and cooking style were overwhelmingly well received. Our sole focus was to stay within the geography — food that reflected Southwest Florida and the sunny climate. We almost always had snapper and grouper on the menu.”

At the open house, visitors can expect to taste compressed watermelon with crab salad and micro basil, vichyssoise with caviar and tuna tartar with soy gelle and wasabi ice cream.

“At the open house we show them around the kitchen and inn, introduce them to staff, do everything we can to say please come visit for dinner,” Timmins said.

While there’s no hard data showing that the open house generates new business for the inn, last year 400 people showed up to try out the fare.

“This is outreach to some degree,” Timmins said. “We’re going to continue to do it. The island has the mystique of being secluded and to some degree, inaccessible. We want to eliminate that myth.”

In addition to the inn’s main dining room, there’s causal dining at the Pink Elephant Restaurant,BZ’s for drinks and The Outlet Restaurant at The Innlet.

Gasparilla Inn is the site of spectacular celebrity weddings and is a known getaway for the Bush family. The inn is an integral part of village life, Damioli said.

“We need the shops and local merchants and they need us,” he said.

New this season; guest rooms have upgraded bedding, flat screen TVs and all are wi-fi friendly.

For the second year in a row, the inn partnered with Lemon Bay High School to recruit students who work there part time.

E-mail: dsanchez@sun-herald.com