721 Chapman Lane, Key West - Something Special!

Yesterday, during Realtor caravan, I finally got a chance to see the recently listed home at 721 Chapman Lane in Key West. I had been there years earlier and sort of remembered it. It looks totally different now than it looked a few years ago. As I made my way from the living room to the kitchen at the rear I could hear different agents going "Ooh!" and "Aah!" and "This is really nice". That normally does not happen. This place was something special.

This house is one of several cigar maker style homes on this block. The Monroe County Property Appraiser says this house was built circa 1906. The public records I saw did not show when the rear addition was added, but it looks to me like it was in the late 1990s. That addition expanded the living area toward the rear and increased the total living area to 1900 sq ft. The current owner replaced much of the siding and redid all of the interiors. The place looks, feels, and smells brand new through out.

The listing Realtor describes this home this way:

"The minute you enter 721 Chapman Lane you know you've found a special property! Located on one of the quaintest streets in the Village, one block from restaurant row! This 3 bedroom, 3 bath home has been tastefully renovated with an elegant Caribbean feel including beautiful Brazilian Mahogany floors and Amish made solid Cherry cabinets. The open concept kitchen, dining and living area lead out to the beautiful covered lanai and heated, salt water pool. There is also a formal living room in the front of the home. Two master bedrooms both boast gorgeous en suite baths, one with a private covered porch overlooking the pool. Don't miss this one!"

The covered rear lanai merges with the interior when the glass doors are opened. You will be able to leave the doors open and walk back and forth between inside and outside from October through most of  May while other parts of the country deal with snow and blowing winds from Canada. The net effect is your living space is much larger and far more enjoyable than you can imagine until you experience in real life.

The entire house feels and looks new. The layout works for modern living. If you grew up in a post World War II ranch, you will understand the difference of modern open living concept as opposed to single purpose rooms. The second floor has two large bedrooms. The rear bedroom has a living area and a balcony which overlooks the pool below. I'm pretty sure back in the 1960s and 1970s only the rich had rear second story balconies overlooking a sweet pool. You can have it all today.

The master bedroom suite is just that: sweet. This is a place where you are walled off from the rest of the world (or at least whoever is in the other master suite at the front of the house). The bedroom has a big vaulted ceiling which in many houses makes one feel lost. But intimacy prevails here because the space is humanized by the furnishings and the opened balcony doors. The balcony provides another place to chill and bask in knowing this is your home - your inner sanctum. 

The second floor front bedroom and bath are equally as nice as the master at the rear, but not quite as large. Every room in this house is special. I doubt you will find anything like it in Key West today. And that is why  people like you want to own a place here - it's not located up north in America where everything is the same.

Opposite to the stairway to the second floor you will find a room currently used as a study and a guest bath. If the desk and chair were removed, that room could be used as a third bedroom. Also, there is a good sized pantry located under the stairway.

Nearby 221 Petronia Street - 2010

2015

2016

 721 Chapman Lane is home is located in the Bahama Village section of Key West, just two blocks west of Duval Street. This area is now changing at a much quicker pace than before. The City of Key West is finally working on the Truman Annex Waterfront Park. This week the waterfront is packed with attendees at the boat races.  I have long believed that when the park is completed, buyers will appreciate the undervalued homes in the Bahama Village area which has not risen in price equal to the houses in the Old Town area. I really think this is finally going to happen. One by one, the straggler properties like the one pictured above at 221 Petronia Street are getting bought up and redone. The house across the street is nearing expansion and completion of its renovation. Nearby hot eateries include the iconic Blue Heaven, Santiago's Bodega, and Firefly. 721 Chapman Lane is 200 feet away. Ft Zachary Taylor beach is a ten minute walk or a few minute bike ride. This area is gonna get hot and it's gonna go up in price.

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet on 721 Chapman Lane which is offered at $1,399,000. This same house would cost about $1.8 million on the other side of Duval Street. Please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to schedule a private showing of this very lovely home. I am a buyers agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties in Key West Florida.

1120 Olivia Street, Key West - Price Reduced

I wrote about 1120 Olivia Street when it was first listed. It has not sold and the price was just reduced. I really thought it would sell fairly quickly because it is such a nice stand alone house in a small land based condominium community with a shared pool. 

The listing Realtor describes the home this way:

Rare, standalone home in secluded, residential Lionsgate compound on Olivia. This 2-bed, 2.5 bath Conch cottage is perfect choice for Key West lifestyle. 1120 Olivia has been lovingly maintained. Two covered porches perfect for people watching from front porch swing or relaxing out back on expansive back porch filled with charm. Home's location within gated compound provides privacy and flanks shared courtyard with bricked paths, large swimming pool, outdoor kitchen, lush landscaping. Main floor king master and en-suite bath boast cathedral ceilings, access to private porch. Open floor plan in main living-dining area offers exceptional space that opens to back porch. Light-filled galley kitchen. Second floor bedroom with en suite bath is a quiet retreat. X-flood plain and dedicated off-street parking, shared courtyard with bricked paths, large swimming pool, outdoor kitchen and lush landscaping. Main floor king master and en-suite bath boast cathedral ceilings, access to private porches. Open floor plan in living-dining and galley kitchen area offers exceptional space that opens onto back porch. Second floor bedroom with en-suite bath is a quiet guest retreat. X Flood plain and dedicated off- street parking complete this sweet home. Lion's Gate is a coveted Old Town compound, a must see!

I searched thru my old shoe box and found the black and white photo taken of 1120 Olivia Street in 1965 - long before the renovation and the expansion at the rear was added. The black and white photo does show the carport which has been replaced by brick pavers and which is the exclusive use of 1120 Olivia Street. I then checked the Historic Sanborn Fire Maps. This house was located on this spot on the 1889 map when it was then identified as 517 Olivia Street. The street numbering was changed to 1120 Olivia Street when the 1892 map was published.

 In 1998 the row of for four houses fronting onto Olivia Street were turned into a small condominium community of just seven units. 1118 Olivia and 1120 Olivia are the only stand alone houses in this community.  The $1027 monthly association fee covers trash, pest control, building insurances, maintenance of each building exterior,  plus common area and pool maintenance. Unit owners maintain the insides of their respective homes. Exteriors cannot be altered without association (and HARC) approval.  The result for a home buyer is that 1120 Olivia Street is pretty much a lock and leave where the owner go back up north for the summer (or wherever and whenever) and know that the property will be maintained and cared for. Let's look at the house.

When Key West was rediscovered and buyers started to buy up the old homes, contractors and architects had to figure out how make the many small houses more functional to the way we live today. This house is one example of how a small house was made bigger and more functional.
An two story addition was added to the rear. The main floor would then become the prime living area with views of the pool. The original front door became the door door from the master bedroom onto the private veranda. The old got some gingerbread and privacy that previously did not exist.

The original front rooms got remade into the master bedroom and master bath. The wood ceiling was removed. The bedroom then had a vaulted ceiling which gave the room an expansive feel - so much so that the current owner employed a canopy bed to scale down the impact of the soaring space. The master bath is en-suite.

The Old Town area is replete with small homes on small lots. This home is one of many that were either a part of the old Pohalski Cigar Factory assemblage or just happened to be located within a few feet of being a part of it. Jerome (Gerome) Lane runs paralell to current day White Street to the east and Pohalski Lane to the west. Jerome Lane had several small cigar maker cottages located on the east side of the lane which no longer exist. My belief is that most of these lots were added onto the White Street houses but a couple became a part of the Lionsgate Condominium's courtyard which includes a pool and outdoor bar-b-que area. A couple of other cottages may have been razed to provide parking off Pohalski Lane to other owners.

The rear veranda, though open to the courtyard view, is mostly private. Landscaping inhibits others from looking into the private space. And since there are only five units total, the number of comings and goings by the space will be limited. Notice there are three doors across the back of the house. The door to the right opens into the kitchen. The French doors and single door open from the living area out to the veranda thereby expanding the inside to the outside.

The new rear addition provides an open concept living space where living flows smoothly between traditionally compartmentalized living room, dining area, and kitchen. The second floor is accessed via the wooden spiral staircase.

You may not be familiar with this part of Old Town, but I bet you know it better than you think. The famous Coffee Mill Dance Studio is located up Pohalski Lane. Sandy's Cafe is a block and half to the south on White Street. The Old Town gym is located two blocks west on Truman. Fausto's grocery is two blocks south on White.  Duval Street is a seven to ten minute walk on Olivia Street or Truman Avenue. You and your guests will be close to all the essentials but far enough away not to be a part of the commotion.

CLICK HERE to view the Key West mls datasheet and listing photos of this really pretty Key West property which is now offered for sale at $939,000. Then please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to schedule a private showing of this really cute two bedroom  two and one-half bath home. I am a buyers agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West. Let me help you find your home in Paradise.

VOTE

I have written my little blog about Key West real estate for nearly eleven years.  Occasional I have departed from writing about homes to share stories about growing up in the suburbs of Denver after World War II. I often mention photos in my old shoebox. I have several boxes of photos, really. And I have boxes and boxes of little trinkets of things I held dear at one time of my life including my Communion Cross and Cub Scout Promise Token. Neither is probably worth much. But they mean so much to - especially on this Election Day November 8, 2016 because these two pieces of metal represent the values I learned in my church, my school, and in my home in the 1950s - a time when values were much different than they are today.

Last summer I traveled back to Colorado to attend my 50th high school reunion. Earlier that day I went to my grade school which was sold off by the school district and is now owned by a non-profit which primarily teaches the children of Mexican immigrants.The young woman who runs the school allowed me to wander through the old building. That blog is located here.

I remember November 2, 1952 quite well. It was the Sunday before election day.  I was sitting on our living room floor looking at the comics in the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post. My dad came over and threw down the Sunday supplements for each paper. There was a full page photo of Dwight Eisenhower on one and Adlai Stevenson on the other. My dad gave me one of those ubiquitous life lessons fathers give to their sons. He told me to NEVER VOTE FOR A REPUBLICAN BECAUSE ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS MONEY.  He said the Democrats care for working people.  At that moment I learned I was a member of the working people group.

Two days later after my mother and dad got off work I walked over to the town hall where they voted for Adlai Stevenson. I remember going inside the building where I saw one or two machines similar to the one below. They each had to tell the people who they were and where they lived before they could go inside. They closed the drapes and voted in private. I understood what voting was. Later that night or maybe the next day we learned the Stevenson lost and Eisenhower won. We repeated the process four years later with the same results.

It was in 1960 that I developed the bug for politics.  I admired John F. Kennedy so much. He was so not like Ike. He was young. He spoke in prose that evoked visions of pride in our country and what we could become.

I got to see President Kennedy in Berlin in 1963. Thousands of people were there screaming and yelling praise at Kennedy. I was so proud that he was our President. Later we got to go to East Berlin and I saw what not having the freedoms we enjoy in the United States looked like. Shortly thereafter we ere on our train riding through East German where we had to stop. German guards boarded the train and went through each and every compartment looking at our passports and bags. A schoolmate of mine, Nina McKitrick, had take a couple of photos of the guards. One grabbed her camera and ripped out the film and handed back to her. She was in tears. I think the rest of us were pretty terrified. Things like that do not happen where we came from. At least not where I lived. A little more than three months later John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He had spoke to my generation to be our better angels. And then he became one. Sometime between his being elected and before his death, I decided I wanted to go to law school to become a lawyer. I planned eventually to run for public office. I did become a lawyer but I never ran for office. Now I sell houses in Key West.

In the summer of 1963 I got involved in local community politics. I organized the Jefferson County Teen Democrats. I was terrified about what a Barry Goldwater presidency would do to our country. There were a lot of other teens like me who got together on Saturdays to walk through various neighborhoods handing out election brochures. We went to several campaign events where we got to shake hands with President Lyndon Johnson and Vice President Humphrey. We did not have polling back then like we have now. I did not go to school on election day. Instead I got in my car and drove voters to their precinct polling places. Later I went to the Democratic post election meeting place to gather with other Democrats. The news coming on TV was quite exciting. It looked like we were going to win and win big. A fellow Teen Dem and I drove down to the Hilton Hotel in Denver. Early editions of the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post already announced that LBJ had won before midnight.

It wasn't until the next day that we learned the extent of LBJ's victory. The Democrats not only won the US Senate and House, but also took over many governorships, state houses, and local offices across the country. Johnson's coattails were long and wide. Several of the candidates who the Teen Dems worked for were elected. We felt we contributed to their victory.

The lessons I learned as a little boy about God and Country live with me today. I have been horrified at the prospect of Donald Trump becoming President. He is not from the mold of an Eisenhower - he ran away from war not toward it. He is not a skilled politician like Nixon nor a statesman like Regan. Just about everybody has a word to describe him. I don't know what will happen today. I already voted. VOTE.  Fifty years from now how will you look back on what you did today?