3529 Sunrise Drive, Key West, Florida

The lovely home at 3529 Sunrise Drive in Key West was built in 1963 and incorporates many of the styles and trends of that era. I pulled out the WayBack machine and recalled these events that occurred in 1963: the Beatles record their first album Please Please Me in a single session; Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique which re-launched the women's movement; General Hospital and The Outer Limits debuted on ABC and My Favorite Martian premiered on CBS, Leave It To Beaver ended - The Beav grew up; Martin Luther King was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for parading without a license and later issues his Letter From Birmingham Jail; Gary Thomas saw President John F. Kennedy in Berlin; the US, UK, and USSR signed the nuclear test ban treaty; Martin Luther King delivers his I Have a Dream speech from the Lincoln Memorial; instant replay was used for the first time during the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia; John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas and three days later Lee Harvey Oswald was killed on live TV.

Events, styles, trends, fads - they all last for awhile and some impacted our lives for years or decades into the future. When you are young, you tend to live in the moment. As you get older, you learn that not everything in the world revolves around you. As you get much older, you may learn that what you do or say or think is of no consequence to anybody else. When you get even older, you disappear. That's sort of what happens to styles, trends and fads-they get ignored or displaced or even replaced. Styles that were hip become passe.

If you are old enough to remember the 1960s you will recall the space race and the New Frontier. You will remember the forward thinking we embraced. Our TV, our culture, our furniture and home goods, and our architecture reflected the hopes and dreams as aspirations of that time. Some homes built then still have fallout shelters a sad reflection of our mass paranoia of that time.

The home at 3529 Sunrise Drive incorporates many of the features found across America in the early 1960s including multiple living levels, large rooms, vaulted ceilings, and large outdoor living areas. But since the house was built in Key West, it has a large pool, tropically landscaped yard, and parking area for the family boat.

The listing Realtor describes the property this way:

"Walled for privacy and lined with lush landscaping this oversized corner lot hosts a 5 bedroom 2 1/2 bath home, large pool, several outside covered seating areas and covered parking. Also room to park your boat and located just down the street from the local boat ramp. Inside you will find vaulted ceilings, many rooms with tongue and groove ceilings, over-sized windows, a family room and den. Plenty of room for entertaining both inside and out. Come add your personal touch and have everything you need in Key West living."

This home is Key West suburban living at its best. This home was built by the lifelong resident of this property. It has been lovingly maintained for decades. You enter in to a formal entry which leads to the formal living area with vaulted tongue in groove wood ceiling the follows through to the sunken formal dining room. I showed this home several times a few years ago when the house was for sale. Potential buyers go distracted by the older style furniture and the animal pelts and heads. Those will disappear and a new owner will have free reign to create a new interior pallet.

When the owners updated the kitchen they kept some of the classic features of the past including the rotary phone and wall radio. They bought a new coil cook-top to replace the original. Of course a new owner could put in a new kitchen with white cabinets and stainless steel Viking appliances. You could. But you don't need to. The family room is a step-down from the kitchen. There is a bedroom and bath beyond. The door at the rear opens out to covered under house parking. Glass sliders in  the kitchen and family room open out to the pool and patio.

This 3,378 square foot home has five bedrooms and three baths on multiple levels. It sits on a large 137.5' X 65' corner lot just a few blocks from the eastern end of the Island of Key West. The houses across the street are located on Rivera Canal and sell for a bout a million dollars or more than the asking price of this property. That is because they are located on the canal. There are umpteen other owners in the area who use the nearby boat launch.

CLICK HERE  to view the Key West MLS datasheet and listing photos of 3529 Sunrise Drive Key West and then please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to schedule a private showing. This home is offered for sale at $1,170,000 or $346 per square foot. I am a buyers agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West.