All Quiet on the Key West Waterfront

Every year around the second week of March I recall my first visit to Key West in 1985 which changed my life forever.  I could not find Key West on a map when I first read about it in AFTER DARK magazine in January 1978. I still have that magazine. The pictures of Randy Jones of The Village People and the other boys grabbed my attention at first. But it was the story of this island where it was okay to be gay captured my imagination. I had lived in Denver, Colorado my entire life. When I started going to gay bars in the early 1970s, you could get arrested for walking across the street at midnight to go to The Broadway, a gay bar located a couple of blocks from the state capitol. It happened all the time. In 1973 friend and fellow law student got arrested in the Court Jester just for dancing with another man.  It took me seven years of thinking and dreaming of going to Key West before it actually happened.

We stayed two weeks. One week at Colours Guest House now called Marerro's. We spent the second week at LaTeDa. We learned so much about the island from locals (like the houseboy who told us where to eat and where to go at night) and guys that had been to Key West many times.

I asked about beaches and someone told us to go to Dick Dock at Higgs Beach. Dick Dock - What? The Queer Pier. What? It was a long wooded pier with a bend in the middle. We had rented a car which back then was almost a necessity to get to the Keys. I quickly learned there were few places to drive once in town and fewer places to park. The beach was one of them so off we went. I recall being awed at the sight of so many gay men sunbathing on the city block long wooden pier, laying on beach towels with their bodies slithered with suntan lotion. I don't care if your gay or straight, everyone checks out hot guys and not so hot guys. We put down beach towels, put on sun lotion, and  quickly learned the wood was splintery and most uncomfortable. The beach in my opinion is equally bad. I hate the grainy sand and people walking by or playing music too loud. The pier was always more civilized.

The city, the county, and the state each maintain a section of the beach. The city of Key West closed city beaches a couple of days ago because of the corona virus threat. Yesterday I went over to Higgs Beach to see if Dick Dock was blocked off. No. It was open as were the other beaches. The orders from thy mayor, the county, the governor were  being defied.

The pier has been re-built several times since I moved to Key West in later 1993. The splintery wood is gone and rails protecting idiots from jumping into ankle level water had been installed. The water and trade winds remain alluring. The parking lot was full of cars, motor bikes, and bicycles of law-breakers sitting too close to each other on the sand or on the pier.

Where ever you are, stay safe. Don't do anything really stupid. Believe there will be a tomorrow because there will. Doubt that, look below. Key West came back after Hurricane Irma. All is quiet on the Key West Waterfront.

Key West is Closed

Key West is officially closed for the short term. None of us knows how long that will be.  The Mayor of Key West issued an emergency order on Tuesday shuttering restaurants at 6:00  PM. Key West had thousands of vacationers, student breakers, second home sowers, and locals that were suddenly left without places to eat. City beaches were closed but county and state beaches remained open. Later the trolley cars, gyms, and other public places and private businesses catering to vacationers were closed. The county issued orders on Thursday closing all hotels and vacation rentals and requiring restaurants only to sell take-away meals.

Earlier I decided not to write anything about the corona virus simply because I did not know enough. It was not affecting us. There had been no cases in the Keys. I understood the gravity of the situation for New York and other areas with concentrated populations. At the same time I recognize that we have service workers from all over the world who work in our hotels, restaurants, and bars plus thousands of tourists from every where who come to Key West by boat, car, and airplane. They come from places like New York City and Hong Kong. This morning the Key West Citizen reported a 72-year-old person in the Florida Keys has tested positive for the virus. She could only say it’s a “travel-related case from the U.K.”

Locals who work in the hotels and bars have been or are being laid off for the foreseeable future. A $1200 handout from Washington won't do a bit of good. I think it is equally foreseeable that many locals may leave town to live with family or friends until such time as businesses reopen. Key West will re-emerge. Just as it was after 911 Key West may be seen as a safer option than vacationing in Asia or Europe for years to come. 

Gary

912 Fleming Street, Key West - Open House

You can bury your head in the sand or go about living your life. We will get through this stuff.

912 Fleming Street 

Key West

12:00 to 2:00 PM

People are awed by this home.

See for yourself.

Key West Horror Story No 19

Today's blog is a continuation Key West real estate transactions where horrible things happened. Unlike some earlier blogs that dealt with death or mistreatment of animals, this story deals with taking advantage of an elderly gay man by a Key West real estate agent.

It was 2006 or 2007 that I first met an elderly gay man who I will call Forrest who came into the real estate office where I then worked. He was probably in his 70s and, while he appeared to be in fairly good physical shape, his rambling speech, faulty memory, and odd behavior suggested he was drifting toward dementia. And though he knew who he was and bragged about his apartment in New York City and his home on Fire Island, I don't think he knew what the heck was going on in his life.

Forrest would pop into the office all times of the day looking for Mike, another agent in my office. If Mike was busy or not in the office, Forrest would walk over to my desk to discuss whatever came into his befuddled head. This went on for several months. I began to dread seeing the old guy walk in the front door.

Mike was always very nice to the old guy and invited him into his office to talk and sometimes take him out to look at houses. I later learned that Forrest had been talking with a different Realtor who I will call Devin. At that time Devin was one of the top producing agents in Key West. He owned a big house and multiple investment properties. Devin sold Forrest an investment property that he owned on Lucky Street (made up name). Devin had purchased that property a couple of years earlier for a little over $500,000 and sold it to Forrest for well over $1,000,000.

A couple of years later I joined Preferred Properties where I still work. I was working with new customers who had moved away from Key West and wanted to return. They were searching house based on price and not location. One Saturday I drove them and their childhood friends to a house they selected in Bahama Village, an area with a large Black population where houses were markedly less expensive than Old Town. As we entered into Bahama Village their friend proclaimed "My momma wouldn't let me cross Duval Street when I was a kid". The buyers quickly decided that house and that location were not for them. The listing agent told me he was listing another house later that day on Lucky Street. It had a pool, off street parking, and a valuable transient rental license. That price was more than these buyers could afford. As soon as I finished showing those folks houses, I called the agent for more info.

The listing agent told me the address - it was the house Forrest purchased from Devin. The agent told me the executor for Forrest's estate contacted him to sell the Lucky Street house,  I asked if Forrest had died. No - he was not competent. He was living in a "home" in New York. The executor decided to cut the losses to the estate and sell the Lucky Street house for just $550,000.

I got as much info from the listing agent as I could and then called a customer I had been working with. He was a cash buyer who had been seeking a transiently licensed home in the $500,000 price range. I faxed him the offer (remember fax machines?). He signed and returned it. I hand delivered it to the listing agent's home late that afternoon. It was accepted. My buyer closed the full price transaction. The house made it into the MLS and went contingent on the same day. My buyer still owns the house which is making him oodles of money.

Cooties Revisited

I was at the gym earlier this morning when another Key West Realtor entered the door. He swiped his membership card and walked over to hang up his keys. He came over to where I was working out to say hello and asked if I have been busy. Not I said. It's been dead. He said the phones have stopped ringing.

I asked if he had checked his cooties at the door. He smiled. He is 25 years my junior. I asked if he even knew what cooties are. Yes. Then he added his wife is a school teacher. She said her kids are playing Corona-Tag. So much for explaining the virus to them.

That made me think back to when I was in elementary school. I wrote about this before but since the real estate market is slow, I'll repeat my story for anyone who may be interested.

It was fall 1959.  I was in the sixth grade at Mountain View Elementary just a few miles east of the front range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Mr. Albert Morrison was my sixth grade teacher. He had fought in World War II. He was a member of the Kiwanis Clubs and got his organization to provide our school with yellow rain slickers, Army surplus helmets painted yellow, and white safety belts which the sixth grade boys wore while on safety patrol. Mr. Morrison also assisted Dr. O'Day who was our Boy Scout troop leader. Mr. Morrison took our troop up to Eldorado Canyon (Colorado) for a three day weekend camping trip where I saw him smoke and heard him swear. He was mortal. I was shocked.

I guess every school has a kid that is a bit different. Our kid was Tommy Myers. He always looked and smelled like Pig-Pen. He was never really scrubbed clean like the other boys. I am certain he had cooties. Really!

Mr. Morrison did not like Tommy. Not one bit. One day Mr. Morrison got so mad at Tommy that he suddenly walked from the front of the classroom to Tommy's desk where he grabbed Tommy by his dirty little arm and yanked him out of his desk and dragged him through the classroom like a rag doll and kicked him out the door! We were shocked. We had never seen Mr. Morrison or any teacher ever treat a student like that. Mr. Morrison was three or four times the size of that kid. He had been in the war. He could have killed the kid. Yeah, he smoked. He swore. He beat up a little kid. Today he would have been arrested. Nothing like that happened back in 1959.

One time Tommy gave me a twenty dollar bill to bribe me to be his friend. That night I was ironing my money so it would look crisp. My big brother saw my stacks of ones but got really bossy and demanded to know where I got that $20. That got my mother in on the conversation. They probably thought I stole it from them. I never did anything like that. I told my mother that Tommy had given it to me. She made me return the money to Tommy's mother. Twenty dollars in 1959 would be worth $174.78 in 2020. I would have been rich if I hadn't been such a neat freak or my brother had not been so bossy.

Cooties. If only life was so simple.

804 Elizabeth Street, Key West - A Perfect Perch on Buzzard's Roost

I went on Realtor Caravan this morning and saw several homes in the Mid-Town and New-Town areas of Key West. Realtors are not supposed to comment negatively about other agents listings so I won't except to say many of the homes built in the mid to later part of the Twentieth Century looked pretty much the same given the year they were built and those that have been recently renovated often look like the owners and contractors got all of their inspiration from Home Depot. Enough said.

Shortly after Caravan I was invited to a Broker's Open at 804 Elizabeth Street hosted by a former colleague, Jeff Dunaway. He was sitting barefoot on a swing on the front porch of the classic Eyebrow House. I asked if I should remove my shoes. No, he said. He invited me inside to eat the catered lunch. I opted instead to look about the house as I had not been inside for several years. I was eager to see the changes. I remembered the pool as being large and very sun-lit as in not having minimal landscaping. I was eager to see the pool which appeared shortly after I entered the house. i saw the pool as I moved from the living room thru the dining room and later a small study at the rear.

The original house dates back to 1874 and has been expanded and renovated by successive owners I dug down into my old shoe box and found a the black and white photo  (below) of the house that was taken in 1965. Two saw tooth additions were added at the rear of the house which are now used as the dining room and study. A separate addition was added to the right rear where the master bedroom and bath are located. There is a small bedroom with bath at the right front of the house. There are three rooms located on the second floor which include a decent sized bedroom, hallway, ante-room, and bathroom.

French doors open from the rear of the master bedroom onto a separate porch overlooking the pool There is an outdoor shower on the far side of the pool. By the way none of the neighbors can see into the yard.

The kitchen opens into the dining room and has a separate glass door that opens out to the covered patio overlooking the pool. I sat pool side and ate two sandwiches and drank a bottle of water. I told Jeff, the Realtor, this house beast any thing we saw earlier in the day. It is among the top of the houses for sale in Old Town at the current time. It is just as cute as can be. That pool is to die for.

This home has a successful history as a monthly vacation rental. You can see why by looking a the photos. Except for the kitchen which is plain, there is nothing about this house that makes you think of Home Depot.  The Dade County Pine walls, the shutters, the pool, the additions and renovations show a totally unique house in a coveted Old Town location. There are two off street parking spaces as well.

While Key West has been inhabited since the early 1820s, most of the population was concentrated around the seaport. This house is located in an area referred to on the 1889 Sanborn Fire Map as Buzzards Roost because it is the highest point on the Island of Key West. Longtime Readers most likely know the area as Solaris Hill - the highest point in all of Key West. I kind of like Buzzard's Roost more. Look closely at the map where you will see notations as to Negro Tenements. I am pretty sure those buildings are now included in what has become the Merlin Guest House. The former convent at St Mary's Star of the Sea Catholic Church was located about three blocks south at Division Street (now Truman Avenue).

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and listing photos for 804 Elizabeth Street, Key West offered furnished at $1,999,000. The 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. You will fall in love with this house!

1423 Von Phister Street, Key West - Just Listed

Just Listed 1413 Von Phister Street, Key West. This house was built in 1948 just after America began to rebuild after World Wat II and has been renovated to meet the needs of its long time owner, an artist of international repute. The house three bedroom, two bath house has 1,470 Sq Ft of interior living space and sits on a large 92.5' X 92.5' square foot lot in the Casa Marina East part of town. 

The house has a red tile roof, red tile floors, arches and French doors galore. It is unique in all of Key West. It has a giant sunny pool and sunbathing areas and gardens what's more.

The lot is nearly wrapped in greenery with bricked paths leading to urns, statues, artifacts, and treasures. The interiors are filled with collections of books, antiques, and art.

I showed this home several times when it was offered for sale a dozen years ago. I thought it was absolutely great. Not everyone can appreciate the art and collections which are not a part of the sale. Some may not be able to see the beauty of the property because of the immensity of the collection.

1423 Von Phister is offered for sale at $1,175,000 which is $142 per sq ft for land value.  A new owner may consider purchasing the site for demolition of the current house and construction of a new home which I consider a viable auction to renovation. This house is not a tear down by any means. But it could be razed and a new house built there. The location deserves to be considered.

A nearby home of similar age and construction at 1523 Washington Street sold in October 2018 for $1,034,000 or $110 per square foot for land value. That house was razed for the construction of a new home.

1523 Washington Street

February 2020

1100 Von Phister Street sold in September 2018 for $1,175,000 or $134 per sq ft. That home was later razed and a new 3,300 sq ft home built there.

1100 Von Phister St before demolition

1100 Von Phister St 2020

1424 Whalton Street, also located in the Casa Marina Area, sold in March 2020 for $1.182,747 or $277 per sq ft.  I understand the new owner plans to raze that concrete block house build in 1953 and replace with a new home.

1420 Whalton SOLD March 2020

While many returning visitors usually consider buying an historic homes in th e Ole town area, others seek larger homes on larger lots venture to other neighborhoods including the Casa Marina, the Meadows, and homes near the beaches.

The Island of Key West measures four miles long by one mile wide. You can get just about any place on the island within five to ten minutes - even during peak season.  If you are seeking a place in Key West CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and listing photos for 1423 Von Phister Street, Key West. 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.