The Night the Lights Went Out in Key West

I have written before that I moved to Key West to own and operate the Eaton Lodge Guest House pictured above. It was the former home Dr. William Warren and his wife Genevieve. Warren was the town doctor. They were involved in the social and political events of the day. Genevieve and her friend Peggy Mills formed the Key West Garden Club. 

I think I was the third person to own the property as a guest house. The owners that converted the property from a residence to guest house hired professional contractors to do the work. I am sure everything they did was done to code. I just don't think they ever thought what happened twenty-five years ago this month would happen. But it did.

That is a photo of Jessie Porter, Genevieve Warren, Vivian Pierce, Connie McLain who were members of the Key West Garden Club. 

Fast forward to September 1994. Eaton Lodge was a thirteen room guest house located steps away from Duval Street. All but two of the rooms had private baths. Those two rooms could accommodate six people and often did. That particular weekend was "Women's Week" later renamed Womenfest Key West. 

Most guest houses have a required length of stay policy during Fantasy Fest, Chirstmas, New Years, boat races, and Women's Week. I can't recall if we require five or seven nights stay but we did have such a requirement. I do recall we were sold out for the duration of the event. All of the guests were women most of whom were probably in their late twenties to late thirties - except there was one man and wife staying who were not a part of the festivities. 

We hosted a cocktail party every night of the year which ran from 5:00 to 7:00 PM. Most guests would go to view sunset at Mallory Square and return to clean up before they go out to dinner. That particular Friday night something odd happened. All the lights, televisions, fans, air condditioning went out something between 5:00 to 7:00. I remember running out to the street to see if the traffic lights were out. They were not. It appeared the electric outage was confined to the property. I went to the breaker box and got the power back on. I remember one woman guest being pretty feisty about being unable to dry her hair or iron her clothes. I appologized for the inconvenience and assured her it was a one tme affair.

It wasn't. The next night around the same time all the power went off again. This time I went straight to the breaker box and got power back on. We quickly deduced that the guest house though wired for all the lights and gadgets was not equipped to have everything being operated at the same time.