Josh Beckmann, all the judges agreed, would make our list on looks alone. At 43, he’s six feet, five inches and a lean 225 pounds of athletic perfection. The overall effect is, as his wife Fabiola wrote, “steamy.” And we’ll take her word that he’s “charming, witty, friendly” and a long list of similar adjectives. But there’s more to the story than that.

When Fabiola was diagnosed with breast cancer in March of 2006, Josh showed his grit. “He put aside his career temporarily to take care of the family first,” Fabiola tells us. It wasn’t easy. The Beckmanns have three sons—Ian, five, and three-year-old twins Sebastian and Luke—and Josh has a busy Siesta Key real estate business. But together they made it through—and tough as it was, Fabiola says the experience was “a blessing.” Why? “We don’t take life for granted any more; now we’re living every moment,” she says. She adds, “I could not ask for a better companion or soulmate, And after 14 years together, he still gives me goose bumps.”

Josh proves that hot gets even hotter when it has been tested by fire. Fabiola says it best when she pays her husband the highest compliment of all: “I pray our three sons will become men like their father.”

Art Willaredt

Art Willaredt, his wife Joanne says, is “like the energizer bunny—he just keeps going.” This 92-year-old is proof that you don’t have to be young to be hot. He may be confined to a wheelchair with Parkinson’s, but he lights up Bay View Health Care Center with his lively humor and interest in everyone and everything. He appreciates every single moment, Joanne says, especially those involving “fun, pretty women, Hooters, golf, cards, great dining”—and his nightly Southern Comfort Manhattan.

Art convinced Joanne to marry him and move with him from Illinois to his winter home in Sarasota in 1993, and she says she quickly learned that “few could compare to this man—my husband and best friend.” He’s her best sounding board and her biggest champion—and his hands are always “warm and comforting to hold.” Hottest of all: “When I enter the room, I see the glow of excitement in his eyes and the familiar smile that stirs my soul.” She touched our hearts when she wrote, “I can’t imagine my life without him.”

Michael Moulton

Let’s face it—in a hottest husband competition, animal magnetism counts. A lot. That’s something Michael Moulton, 51, has in spades. He’s the tiger lurking in the Brooks Brothers suit—except no tiger ever had such beautiful blue eyes.

As a hunk, Michael is as high-end as the waterfront real estate he sells for Michael Saunders. As his wife, Katie, puts it, “He has an incredible sense of style, impeccable taste in fabrics, color and is so perfectly put together—always!”

What we like second best—after the eyes, of course—is the way Michael so perfectly complements Katie. As general manager of The Colony Beach and Tennis Resort, she has one the most labor-intensive jobs in town. So Michael shops and plans their social schedule—including putting together an annual Christmas-gift package for her that includes the top shows of the coming year, each one preceded or followed by an ultra-romantic dinner. He even straightens out her closet.

But the best part, according to Katie? “On our weekly long walks over the Ringling Bridge, every now and then he just leans over and gives me a kiss or grabs my hand and pulls me close for a while—wow, after all these years?!”

Oh, and did we mention the eyes?

Oscar Correa

When Christine Correa met Oscar Correa at Club Bandstand at Sarasota Quay in 1992, she said to herself, “I am in so much trouble.” The young Argentinean with the smoldering good looks didn’t speak much English, but he was clearly fluent in the language of love—and when they danced together, she couldn’t stop thinking, “He smells so good.” Recently arrived in America, Oscar was getting up every morning at 5:30 for a day of landscape work, then washing dishes at Caragiulo’s at night, but he managed to find time to woo and wed Christine.