OCEAN REEF CLUB is a 2,000-acre hamlet with its own 4,000-foot airstrip, school, museum, security force and fire department. It also has top-rate restaurants, three golf courses, an inn exclusively for club members and their guests and a man-made lagoon created with sand brought in from the Bahamas.

But what’s most remarkable about this community of CEOs and celebrities (think Kathie Lee Gifford, who’s been known to host events here) is how almost nobody’s heard of it.

“It’s the best-kept secret in Florida,” says Steve Florio, vice chairman of Condé Nast parent company Advance Publications, who bought a house in Ocean Reef three years ago. “It’s not the Florida of strip malls. It’s truly like being in the Caribbean, so luxurious and so restful.

“I used to tell people, ‘I’ll never buy a house in Florida.’ But Ocean Reef is not like Florida. It’s like its own island.”

Having Gulfstream or Hawker access in a place where the marina houses more than 100 yachts might seem like gilding the lily, but it’s actually a necessity for the cash-rich, time-poor power brokers at Ocean Reef; they can’t afford to take the circuitous land route. (No matter how nice your limo is, it’s a long drive to the end of a turnpike before turning onto isolated two-lane roads right out of a M. Night Shyamalan film.)

Florio isn’t among Ocean Reef’s more than 200 private airplane owners, but he’s often hitched a flight with a friend. “My wife will pick me up in a golf cart, and I’m at my house in about four minutes,” he says.

Despite such luxuries, Ocean Reef homes are still relatively affordable. The club has 750-square-foot one-bedroom con-dos, with boat dockage, that start at $325,000. In addition, 1,350-square-foot two-bedroom condos, with golf and lake views, go for around $435,000.

Many Ocean Reef properties are furnished, including canal-front homes that run more than $2 million. Although prices for some homes have tripled in the past 10 years, they compare favorably to, say, South Beach, where prime properties sell for more than $1,000 per square foot.

The catch: In order to live in Ocean Reef, a resident must be sponsored by two current members (not unlike Soho House) and purchase a charter equity membership for $180,000.

The membership gives the buyer airport privileges and an ownership stake in and access to all of the club’s amenities, including tennis, beach facilities and a slew of kid-friendly, resort-style activities. Broker Russell Post of Russell Post Properties will show prospective buyers around and make introductions when necessary.

“I don’t know of a nicer family place,” says Post, who’s been at Ocean Reef since the 1970s, working his way up from resort manager to president and CEO of the club in the 1990s. “Most places find ways to deal with kids, but this place just welcomes them and envelops them with all kinds of programs and activities for kids of all ages.”

On any given day, Ocean Reef is full of kids riding on golf carts (ages 10 and up can get a golf cart driver’s license). There are about 80 children enrolled in its 11-year-old school, which is entirely member-funded.

“It’s so great leaving your kids here, knowing that they’re safe and getting a good education,” says Ocean Reef resident and plane owner Tom Flanagan, managing partner at Chicago law firm Flanagan Bilton. “And you can get anything you want here. This is the closest thing to utopia in the world.”

Flanagan is speaking of a very specific kind of utopia, where families roam in safety and moguls live and play without pretense. The club is a place where people who’ve conquered caste systems can forget about social-climbing and empire-building, and create an actual community.

Consider this: South Beach, about 60 miles away, is packed with pretenders spending a quarter of their net worth on valet parking and the rest of their money on $12 drinks. In Ocean Reef, the most popular restaurant is the nondescript Raw Bar, where millionaires eat off paper plates with plastic forks.

“Buying at Ocean Reef for me wasn’t about watching real estate appreciate,” says Flanagan, who’s owned a home here for 30 years. “It was about preserving something important.”

Reef rights

OCEAN REEF AMENITIES INCLUDE:

A 4,000-foot airstrip for residents

A marina with 175 slips and docks

A cultural center with a library, museum and 300-seat theater

A school

Fishing, snorkeling, windsurfing and other watersports

Golf, tennis, swimming pools, basketball courts and a health club

A security force responsible for what the U.S. Secret Service has called “one of the most secure communities in the United States.”