Key West with One Regret

Twenty Six years ago this month I sat foot on the Island of Key West for the very first time. I had read about Key West a few years earlier in a magazine called "After Dark". Things were different back then. We did not have 24 hour per day news channels and travel channels to tell us about the world. We had to read magazines and books. The photos above are from the Jnuary 1978 issue I read. (That's Randy from The Village People in the top photo doing a Key West photo shoot for the article.) Those pics attracted my attention, but it was the story inside about Key West that made me decide that I must see this place for myself. It took me too long to make the trip, but the wait was worth it.

I drove down from Miami and thought, if I didn't like Key West, I could return to Miami or Ft. Lauderdale for the second week of my vacation. When I got to Key West, I did what any red blooded American guy would do. I didn't read the map. I guessed which direction to take. I drove south along the ocean side and ended up in no man's land somewhere. I was really upset. I thought I had made a horrible mistake coming here. I kept driving west and eventually found Duval (this is an island after all). Then I found the cross street where my guest house was located. I checked in and started to decompress. Within hours there was no stress at all. Like every other first time tourist I walked up and down Duval Street and some of the side streets taking in the still "beat" feeling that existed at that time. The town had not been gentrified the way it is now. Some places like Jerry Herman's two sisters houses at the corners of Fleming and Elizabeth were redone. But so many more houses looked like they were ready to fall down. The sidewalks were cracked and falling apart. When you walked down the sidewalks at night Palmetto bugs (dozens of them) would litter the sidewalks. The sidewalks are fixed now and the bugs are gone. Thank God on both accounts.

Each day brought a new discovery. I met new friends at the guest house. Together we found great restaurants to enjoy and together created wonderful memories of one of my best vacations ever. I met some locals and got invited to a party at a really swank Casa Marina home. I attended Tea Dance at La Te Da. (They held Tea Dance on both Wednesday and Sunday afternoons. The town was hopping!) I made the nightly trek to the COPA and the other bars that existed back then. There was a place called Michael's on Duval Street. The Old Plantation and another bar called Papillion were popular as well, but now they are now gone. The Monster had burned down a year or so before. So I only learned of it by legend. I made the pilgrimage to Atlantic Shores and was amazed at the mass of naked people, many college kids and locals, hanging out listening to loud disco music in the daytime.

I'm not a party person, but I started thinking "I could live here." Then it became "I want to live here." It wasn't about the bars or the booze or the sun. It wasn't about the beautiful old houses or tall palm trees or the ocean. It was about the way that the People that live in Key West relate to where they live and how they relate to each other. I found Paradise.

It took me nine years of screwing around making goof-ball offers on real estate before I bought my first property. I was always trying to get the best deal. That got me no deal for nine years. Then I got lucky. Real lucky. I bought a foreclosed guest house at an SBA (Small Business Administration) auction in 1993. I aggressively outbid the others in attendance. I moved to Key West the week before Christmas. So many great properties had slipped through my hands. I wasted nine years in the cold winter snows. Nevermore.

Look at the photo just below. My Realtor called me about it when in got listed in 1987 for the asking price of $280,000. She asked if I remembered the property. Of course I did. It was the grimy Q Rooms at 600 Fleming Street. I told her drug addicts lived there and that I wanted no part of it. She implored me to reconsider. I would have none of it. I knew better! (What a pompous idiot I was.)

The Q Rooms in 1987

Some buyers much smarter than I snapped the Q Rooms up in a flash. They renovated the place on the inside and spiffed it up on the outside. They added a pool and even added a restaurant on the corner. They created The Marquesa Hotel. Later they acquired two additional parcels of ground and did some additional renovation and more new construction. They turned $280,000 into a landmark which is also a goldmine.

The Marquesa Hotel - March 2011

I have a lot of stories about other places I missed buying. I drive past many of them on a near daily basis. I sometimes muse what might have been. It's the same thing I sometimes do when thinking of relationships that could have happened or could have been avoided if only....

A reader who became a buyer who is now a friend sent me a newspaper article about Key West that appeared in The Guardian earlier this year. CLICK HERE to read Edmund White's account of his ongoing relationship with Key West. While White does not cite the address of where he lived in 1979, I am pretty sure it is 1327 White Street (our current listing) since there are only three houses located across from the church he wrote about and only 1327 is as large as the house he described. White's nostalgia for what was is understandable. I miss the same things he misses. Much of Key West has become too gentrified. Too many people want to turn simple old houses into show places. Too many nasty tee shirt shops on Duval spoil our little town. Too many scooters and electric cars create too much traffic. Cruise ships inundate lower Duval Street with too many day trippers. Thank God for hurricanes and hot September days when town goes back to normal.

I found and saved some photos online of Old Town Key West that were taken by others around 1978. Here are a few.

300 block of William Street - Key West - 1978

300 block of William Street - 1978 - Key West

This Key West house now has a big fence in front but not when photographed in 1978

I lament the loss of what once was Key West including the fact that cats and dogs can no longer lay in the middle of Fleming Street to take a nap. I will always remember my Realtor picking me up at the Cypress House to take me to the airport after a buying trip that crapped out. We were going down the street and she had to stop her car to wait for a dog to wake up and move out of the way.

Nothing stays the way it was forever. Times and people change. The old houses of Key West look pretty much the same today as they did a hundred years ago except now they get painted more regularly and have lush gardens and pools. The college crowd and tourists still flock to Key West in March to greet Spring with a Key West tan and enough experiences to make them wish they could live in a place like Key West forever.

If you are looking to buy a place in Key West, please consider working with me, Gary Thomas. I am a buyer's agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Coastal Realty, Inc. in Key West, Florida. The only regret about my move to Key West is that it took me nine years to do it.

605 Free School Lane - Old Town - Key West

Just re-listed, but not by me, 605 Free School Lane in Old Town Key West. The asking price is $1,375,000. Read on, Dear Reader. This place makes money. This is how the listing Realtor describes this property:

"Just completed renovation from top to bottom: This beautiful transient licensed home situated at the end of a quiet dead end lane in the heart of the historic district is currently being used as a vacation rental. The spacious floor plan includes a main level bedroom and bath, large galley style kitchen and great room with French doors that open to a large covered porch. Upstairs are two enormous master suites with French doors to a partially canopied balcony overlooking the landscaped yard and pool. Features include high ceilings, wood and tile floors and heated pool. The property is being sold beautifully furnished."

The house has got a lot of really great things going for it. First, it is hidden away on a quiet little lane behind the Hotel Marquesa and next door to Nancy's Secret Garden. Those two neighbors mean that the property values will never go down because the adjacent owner will always maintain their property. Second, the house was built in 1984 and has recently been renovated. It is used a legal vacation rental and it has the requisite Transient Rental License. Third, the house is almost always rented. That means that it is almost always producing income to help pay ownership expenses when the property owner is not using the property. This is the exact proto-type of house most second home buyers envision when they think of buying a second home in Key West--a place with a pool and a good location.

When you enter the gate from Free School Lane you first see a lush yard with free form heated pool and then you see the beautiful 2 story home with an inviting large covered front porch. The first level features a great room, large galley style kitchen, bar area, full bath, bedroom and tile floors. There are French doors on either side of the great room that allows pool and tropical garden views. Upstairs are two enormous bedrooms with private baths, vaulted ceilings and wood floors. All rooms throughout the home have French doors opening to the outdoors. You won't believe the views from the second floor. They will make your friends green with envy.

The house is in the heart of Old Town, but it is located on a quiet lane. It produces income to defer the cost of ownership, and it is always rented. It really produces income. It is totally furnished, and it even has a list people with advance reservations waiting to spend their vacation in paradise in what could be your second home. Interested, then CLICK HERE to view more info and see interior and exterior photos of the property. Please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, or contact me by e-mail at kw1101v@aol.com. I am a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Coastal Realty Inc. in Key West, Florida. Since the house is always rented, advance notice is required on all showings.

One of my biggest real estate mistakes in Key West

During my first trip to Key West in March 1984 I decided that I wanted to buy a guest house and move here. I would ditch the corporate world of America and escape to Paradise.

My first Realtors were a gay couple that did not own a car. So I had to walk to or take a taxi to look at property. They got out of the business (I wonder why...) and I met Mitzi Krabil, a realtor who worked at the same company. I made many trips to Key West and looked at several existing guest houses and properties that could be converted into guest houses with Mitzi. And for a variety of reasons (mostly self created), I did not buy any property.

Then in late 1986 or early 1987 Mitzi called me and said that the Q Rooms on Fleming Street were just listed for sale at $280,000 and suggested that I buy it quick. Now Mitzi had never suggested anything that brash earlier. I knew what the Q Rooms were: a run down boarding house with 14 rooms and 14 licenses meaning that I could convert property into a 14 room guest house. I had once seen a street person sleeping under the front porch. I let my snootiness get in the way of my brain and said no to the notion.

The building was located on the corner of Fleming and Simonton Streets--just a block from Duval, but right in the heart of Old Town. It had the right number of rooms to create a successful and profitable small hotel operation (12 to 15 rooms is perfect). Like I said, I turned up my nose. Two building contractors (and their wives) purchased the property for $270,000 in March 1987 and opened the Hotel Marquesa and the Cafe Marquesa in 1989. (I'll tell you a story about the Cafe another time.) They later purchased two adjacent parcels and enlarged the property. The enlarged property with 27 guest rooms, two pools, glorious gardens, and covered parking opened just in time for Christmas in 1994. And it has been a raving success from day one.

The photos to the right show the building as it appeared on my first trip to Key West in 1984 and today plus a photo of one of the pools. If you click on the title "One of my biggest real estate mistakes in Key West" you can tour the Marquesa's website. I would estimate the current value of the hotel and restaurant as $15 million. I mention this experience because of missed opportunities. I think I reacted to the opportunity to purchase the property the way a lot of would-be buyers react--especially in a volatile market. I found a reason not to buy the property. I vividly remember the bum under the building every time I think about what could have been.

The real estate market in Key West is depressed today just as it is in most pats of the country. Would-be buyers are waiting for the prices to settle before making a move. The demand is there, but the buyers are pretty much holding back--waiting. I understand why they are holding back. But there are some real bargains available today in Key West. And those bargains will be bought by someone at some price, and later someone like me will rue the day that he or she made the decision not to buy.