315 Virginia Street, Key West- Just Listed

Just Listed, but not by me, 315 Virginia Street in Key West, Florida.  This home has recently been renovated into a really charming two bedroom two bath with new salt water pool. It is located just two blocks west of Duval Street and within easy walking distance to nearby Ft Zachary Taylor Beach, the Hemingway House, and all of Old Town. I looked in my old shoe box and found  the black and white photo below which shows this home as it appeared about fifty years ago. The color photo below that shows a similar view of the house as it looks today.

The house first appeared on the 1892 Historic Sanborn Fire Maps. Much of the immediate  area was vacant of homes or commercial buildings at that time. In the  "Autobiography of Stephen Moreno Whalton" I found the passage below which speaks about this particular area which Whalton refers to as "the woods":

"Another event in my life that I have never forgotten happened when I was about seven years old, at that time there were a very few houses on the Southeast side of our Truman Avenue, most of that part of the Island was a wilderness, my grandfather and my father raised quite a number of horses in the woods of Key West, and my grandfather gave me a horse and my father had him broken to harness and saddle, this was a stallion, and somewhat mean. The only time that I was put on his back, was on a Sunday morning, when one of my father’s hired men put me on him without a saddle, as soon as he got out of the yard, he started to run, and I was too small to stop him, there was a man coming up the street who stood with his arms open,but when my horse got near this man, he made a quick turn to go by him, and landed me on a flint rock, I recovered from that accident in about six weeks, but I never had a chance to get even with that horse, as my father sold him before I became old enough to handle him. This was the end of the events of my early childhood, which have remained fresh in my memory down through the years, due of course, to the fact, that they made a great impression on my mind at the time of happening."

Fort Zachary Taylor Beach, Key West

The black and white photo teaches us a bit about the history of this house. The front section with the louver windows and door was the original house. Note the gable roof midway. That was likely a kitchen addition. In earlier times cook houses were not attached to houses because of the threat of fire.  The black and white photo shows a second addition at the rear with a flat or shed roof. Today, the rooms are arranged with the two bedrooms located at the front of the home off the hallway that leads through the house to the living room at the rear. The kitchen is located in that earlier addition, but it looks nothing like it did more than half a century ago.

This newly renovated two bedroom, two bath home has 1026 sq ft of interior living space. It looks sharp and contemporary even though wild horses ran in nearby woods more than a century ago. One more thing, there is a pool in the rear. They didn't have pools in the old days.

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet on 315 Virginia Street, Key West offered at $1,150,000. Then please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642 to schedule a private showing. I ama buyers agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West. This home is currently used as a monthly vacation rental. Showings are available until March 1st. This could be one of those snooze you lose houses. Best to see it while you can get inside.