912 Fleming St, Key West - Sunday Open House

I am hosting another Open House on Sunday February 23rd at 912 Fleming Street between 12 to 2  PM.  Stop by and check out this 3,228 square foot Grand Conch House.

You will likely find me sitting at the kitchen table working on a crossword puzzle. I'll stay seated as you work your way toward the glass panel doors that lead to the 30 foot covered rear deck that overlooks the gardens and pool.

As guests pass through the doorway out to the deck the most common refrain in "Oh My God!".  They see the pool and the magnificent open sky with no houses looking down onto the grounds.

Stop by. Take a look. Fall in Love with the view, the house, the location.

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.

Garage Sailing in Key West

This blog is now twelve years old. I have taken (literally and figuratively) thousands of photos of Key West properties over the years. I have stored them on several websites including Photobucket which was clumsy to use so I migrated Flickr which is my primary host now.

Yesterday I was searching my old Photobucket photos which go back about decade and found images of houses that have been renovated to the extent that I forogt how bad they used to look. That is why I do my continuing blog The Projects of Key West which I will be updating soon. I digress.

I came upon the photo above that I took years ago inside a cute little house on Elgin Lane. I just love the kitsch. Too wonderful for words. That's why I took the picture. It was of the one-of-a-kind lamp. I immediately recognized that lamp!

You may recognize the photo two above. It shows the living room of my new listing at 1213 Grinnell Street Key West. Look at the lamp next to the sofa. It's the same lamp that used to be at the Elgin Lane house except that it belongs to a totally different owner who bought it at a garage sale.

The owner told me that he and his wife love to go garage sailing. He has picked up some incredible one-of-a-kind items at bargain prices. He pointed out some of the pieces he bought and the amount he paid.  I was sitting on the above sofa as he described his purchases. I looked down at the sofa and told him a true story of two sofas of a similar design that I used to own.

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 these 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 at a home Wolkowsky had just finished renovating on Johnson Street. This time they were located poolside near the giraffe. 

I got a phone call a couple of years ago from David. He had just finished a renovation on property on Eisenhower Drive which abutted a house I had listed on Albury Street. 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 barked "Do you know who I am?" I said I did. He sold his house. My listing did not sell and has still not sold.

Some people recycle lamps. Some people recycle sofas. I recycle stories of Key West kitsch and characters. Go garage sailing. Buy somebody else's treasure. It's got to have a story behind it.

516 Elizabeth Street, Key West - A True Historic Home

I got to see the inside of 516 Elizabeth Street, Key West (above) for the very first time a couple of weeks ago during Realtor Caravan. It is located next door to 514 Elizabeth Street - the very first house I sold in Key West 23 years ago. 514 Elizabeth Street is supposed to be the second or third oldest house in Key West which suggests that 516 Elizabeth Street may have been built around the same time. Both are built with porches that are but two feet from the sidewalk and have similar interior features even though the architectural styles are totally different.

Realtor Caravan introduces new listings to agents both young and seasoned. I watched young agents take iphone videos of the inside as they walked through the house in seeming amazement. The house has the necessities but it has not been abused like so many with all the creature comforts of modern day living.  Before we look inside let's appreciate this location and an abbreviated explanation about the age of these two properties.

Key West became an important part of US commerce in the 1800s as all marine travel passed by the Southernmost Point headed to ports in the Gulf of Mexico. Much of the Old Town area was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1886. I found the above map (Monroe County Library website) which shows the path and destruction of the fire and a photo that graphically demonstrates the loss of the wood homes and commercial buildings. I added an "X" to mark the location of 516 Elizabeth Street.  Readers who have never been to Key West need to understand ours is an island city  one mile wide and four miles long located out on the middle of the ocean.  The fire fighters and citizens were overwhelmed by the mass of destruction. That so much survived is a miracle. That so much was lost is tragic.

I took the above photo of 514 and 516 Elizabeth several years ago from the second floor front porch of a newly renovated home with a pool and al the contemporary comforts I mentioned above. Seeing both of the older houses gave me pause to appreciate what a special place Key West is. Let's look inside 516 Elizabeth St.

516 Elizabeth Street is one of about one hundred Eyebrow Houses - a style unique to Key West. The roof overhangs the front of the house to provide protection from rain and sun allowing the inside to have fresh air even during a rain storm. The second floor windows start just a few inches above the floor level giving the suggested appearance of "eyebrows".

You enter into a center hallway and notice the ten foot ceilings; stenciled wood floors,  Dade County Pine; and crisp white painted trim and ceilings throughout. Every room is clean and meticulous. It is like a museum in its detail but a cherished living space in its use.

The dining room and kitchen are located at the left and center rear of the house. As I passed through the dining room I was struck by seeing a window opening into the kitchen. I rounded the corner to find a white four coil stove reminiscent of not-so-long-ago. The kitchen cabinets are extra high and look handcrafted.  The ceiling height and exterior wood walls strongly suggest this space was an addition. It is absolutely precious. French doors open from the kitchen to the deck as well.

The top photo shows the deck at 516 Elizabeth Street which has room for a cocktail pool. The photo just above shows the cool pool view at 514 Elizabeth with 516 to the right. What's not to like?

This 1,411 square foot house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms including the first floor bedrooms above.

I have sold several eyebrow houses. Each one is a bit different in size, condition, and interior layout. Remember most were built before we had inside plumbing and were adapted - after the fact to provide it. The upstairs bedrooms here have interior "windows" presumably to allow ventilation.

This home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and awarded the Gold Star for Historic Preservation. It is located in the X Flood Zone just two blocks from Duval Street and all that goes on over there. And it is a short stroll to the Historic Seaport that was and still is a vital part of the Key West economy. 

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and stunning photos of 516 Elizabeth Street, Key West offered at $1,149,000. Then please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to schedule a private showing. I am a buyers agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West. This is truly a beautiful. You must see it if you love old homes.