The Case of the Traveling Sofas in Key West

I moved to Key West Christmas week in 1993. I had purchased the former Eaton Lodge guesthouse located at 511 Eaton Street. The building had been shut down for about two years while the property was being foreclosed upon by the Small Business Administration.  The windows and doors were boarded up to keep thieves and the homeless out.  The former owners left all of the furnishings including antique pieces of furniture acquired by their predecessors plus two white slip covered sofas of recent origin which were located  in the living room of the house once  owned William Warren, the town doctor. After we took possession we decided to keep the Eastlake pieces and all of the wood furniture but opted to put the two sofas out on the street. We knew someone would want those sofas even if we didn't.

We had barely got the second sofa placed on the sidewalk when this older man stopped and asked what we were doing and inquired if he might have the sofas. We had not had time to put the cushions on the sofas. He was delighted to learn that the sofas had cushions as well. Then he asked if we could hold the sofas until he could get a friend to help him move the sofas. I said yes. My partner and I moved the sofas back inside until the man returned with a younger man in his late thirties or early forties. I helped the younger man put thes sofas in his aged Toyota. He made several trips carrying the sofas and cushions to some other location. The older man introduced himself as David Wolkowsky.

A year or so later my partner and I started to look at houses in Key West including a a newly built spec house on Admirals Lane in Truman Annex. I recall the asking price was $500,000.  The builder was David Wolkowsky. My two former sofas were located in the living room of this house. I laughed. I did not buy the house. I should have. That house is now worth around $2,000,000.

A few years later I saw the same two sofas inside a house David Wolkowsky had renovated on Washington Street in the Casa Marina East area,

I saw those same two sofas for the very last time on March 15, 2015 during an early evening Realtors Open House. This time they were located poolside near the giraffe. David Wolkowsky was hosting this open house to attract agents to sell another of his renovation projects.

I got a phone call a couple of years ago from David. He had just finished a renovation on property which abutted a house I had listed. He called me to discuss the outrageous price I had on my listing. I told him the seller set the price, not me. He sounded genuinely angry at the price. He said "Do you know who I am?" I said I did. He sold his house. My listing did not sell and has still not sold.

David Wolkowsky

David Wolkowsky died Sunday night. He was 99 years old. An article in the Miami Herald included this passage:

"He had celebrated his birthday on Aug. 25 in true Wolkowsky style: a house full of free-spirited guests, clouds of white orchids, popping champagne corks and his sister, Ruth Greenfield of Miami, a classically trained concert pianist and civil rights pioneer, playing happy birthday on the grand piano as the crowd sang along. He presided from the white couch, dressed in linen, his trademark Panama hats stacked nearby. And instead of receiving gifts, he gave them: a black pearl necklace in a jeweler’s box for each of the several dozen women who attended."

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/florida-keys/article218928945.html#storylink=cpy