1003 Seminary Street, Key West - Casa Marina Area Redux

 

1003 Seminary Street, Key West. Stunning Contemporary Conch House located in the Casa Marina Area. Renovation now complete. All new exterior. All new interior. Pool. Guest Cottage. Two bricked off street parking spaces. Near the beach. Near Old Town. Near Perfect. Furnished. Interiors by BEN TEAGUE DESIGN

Freshly Renovated & Enlarged 3/3 in the Exclusive Casa Marina Area. NEW Everything including New Great Room with Vaulted Ceiling with Doors Opening out to Covered Deck. Bricked Dining Terrace. Totally Private Pool and Tropical Garden. All New Kitchen, Custom Cabinets, Quartz Counter Tops, Gas Range. Fully Fenced & Landscaped including TREX Decking, Bricked Off Street Parking for Two Cars. $2,300,000.

 

Key West- a safe place to live

Recently a prospective  customer asked me about a Key West neighborhood. We drove through the area where I pointed out houses I had sold or knew something interesting or maybe salacious. I pointed out where some famous people live (or used to live before they died or were ushered out of town). I discussed how many police we have in Key West and how little crime. And that I feel safe living here.

I told them about the time I was walking on Whitehead Street moments after a local bank had been robbed.There were cop cars with lights blinking and uniformed offices everywhere. I surprised to see so many undercover police (some dress like Hells Angels) with badges displayed and carrying guns. It was a massive display of force you just would not expect in such a small island town. The police immediately caught the guy. What kind of idiot would rob a bank or steal a car on an island? The point was Key West is a very safe place to live.

And then I immediately related back to growing up in Denver, Colorado and how safe I felt there until just before I moved to Key West. The entire Denver area had less than 500,000 when I was a child but grew to nearly two million when I moved to Key West in 1993. I grew up in a suburb just a couple of miles east of where the Rocky Mountains rise out of the ground. I moved into the Capitol Hill area of Denver at age 21 to attend law school and lived in that area until I moved to Key West at age 47. 

Two of several unrelated events changed my whole view how safe my neighborhood and my ity had become. I sold my home in 1993 and had rented a house in the 800 block of Lafayette Street. A woman Realtor was raped and killed while showing a house a in the 700 block of Lafayette Street - one bock south - the same block where Mamie Doud Eisenhower grew up. Her home is shown at the top. It was not the murder house. They all look pretty much alike. They were expensive then. They are more expensive now. Very desirable area of town. Less desirable after a murder. 

A short time later the television stations had saturated coverage of then freakish story which is now a daily occurrence in many large cities. But then it was freakish because that kind of thing had never happened before - at least in Denver. It scarred us all. As I recall a little girl, aged three,was riding in the back seat of her family car when she was shot in the head by some random stranger. She died of her wound. The shooting was not road rage related - just random violence. It was time to leave Denver.

I told my customer how safe I feel in Key West. Our crooks are politicians, drunks, dopers, and occasional bank robbers. In that order.

OPEN HOUSE TOMORROW

WATCH MLS LATER TODAY for NEW LISTING

READ TOMORROW'S BLOG FOR DETAILS

58 Golf Club Drive, Key West - Killer View

 

Just Listed 58 Golf Club Drive in the Key West Golf Club Community. The original developer selected this and the adjacent unit as model units because of their prized views of the second fairway. The 2,449 Sq Ft lot is larger than most and features a gorgeous private pool. Most homes do not have pools.

Styled as a "cottage, this 1,060 Sq Ft town home has two bedrooms, two and one-half bath."s. The home has a recently updated kitchen and bathrooms. But it is that killer view that commands attention as soon as you enter the front door. What a killer view it is. 

There is a guest bath located just off the kitchen and under the stairway to the second floor. The furnishings may be purchased separately.

I have sold over forty homes in the golf club over the years both as listing agent and selling agent. I recall talking with a potential buyer in preparation of his visit to look at homes. I suggested the golf club partly because of facilities but also because it offers the best value for homes in our area. He said  Ï don't play golf" like that was a requirement. What's not to like? The eighteen hold Reece Jones course is beautiful. The view from the back porch overlooks the second fairway and the lake. 

The Butterfly Garden

The community center includes a small gym and administrative offices. The butterfly garden is located on the opposite side of the center. While the golf course is open to the public, all traffic must pass through a manned security gate. The roads and greenery are spotlessly maintained. It is like living in a country club without the snootiness or the cost. 

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet for 58 Golf Club Drive, Key West offered for sale at $739,500. Then please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to schedule a private showing. I am a buyers agent an a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West. Thee are a limited number of homes for sale in Key West at this time. This has got to be one of the best priced homes available. And it undoubtedly has the best view. And it will very quickly. Don't delay.

Key West Real Estate Thowback Thursday No 37

 from: October 1, 2018

Latch Key Dogs in Key West

Unlike many places across the United States, most houses and condos in Key West are shown by the listing agent instead of by accessing a lock box. This is both a tradition and a necessity as Key West many if not most listings here are viewed as both special and may also be tenant occupied. Special listings can be either very expensive homes that require strict control as to who goes inside or making sure that a potential buyer does not get injured while viewing a house in need of repair.

But all rules have exceptions including the house on Watson Street I showed several years ago. I remember the day and circumstance quite well. The listing agent told me she could not be present. The house was on lock box. She gave me the combination and said the tenant's dog would be in the house. The dog was tame and would not be a problem. It was probably winter as I noticed the light in the living room was turned on. I knocked on the door thinking the tenant was home. No answer. I opened the lock box, retrieved the key, and unlocked the door. I announced myself "Realtor".  No answer. I beckoned my customer to follow me inside whereupon I saw a big done sitting on the sofa watching her afternoon soap opera (or Oprah or whatever) on the television. The dog did some cute dog thing. The buyer probably gushed and talked baby talk.  We moved from room to room and then let the dog go back to its television. (I borrowed the black and white photo above, but it clearly represents what happened on the day I showed the house on Watson.)

This was not a one-time phenomenon. Another time the listing agent who was also the owner of the property I was showing gave me the lock box to his house. He said his two dogs would be present and not to mind them - they were harmless despite their size. Sure enough they were home guarding the bedroom.  I couldn't get them to move. They sniffed and checked us out then plopped their big behinds in front of the door just to make sure we behaved. 

The exception occurred a few years earlier while I was showing a tenant occupied condo on the eastern end of Key West. My buyers and I went inside a two story condo without incident. The tenant's dog yipped as we walked about. My buyers descending the stairs without incident.  I trailed behind, locked the door, and headed toward my car when my buyer said "Gary, you're bleeding". Apparently the little dog snapped at me and bit my ankle. I am glad he was small and not a German
Shepherd - that would have hurt.

I am listing three new properties. Watch the MLS in the next few days. I expect two will have bidding wars. One on open house this weekend.

Buying a House in Key West Isn't Easy

 

There are dozens of not a few hundred people out there who live on their computer searching the Key West MLS, Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com websites for new listings in Key West. I have been writing about this phenomenon for years. Like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, they seek to find a home in Key West to replace the locals and take up living in Paradise. They make an annual pilgrimage to Key West to search in person walking the streets, looking for For Sale signs, taking phone numbers, calling agents, attending open houses, and talking to locals in bars- they know the real story. Now they are among us. Thousands of them. 

For months I have been predicting new MLS listings. They just have not materialized in the numbers we have experienced in years. What was predictable, has just not materialized. There have been a few. I spoke to two listing agents on Monday. I won't identify them or their listings posted this past week. 

One posted a very nicely renovated home with a pool in a decent but not great Old Town location. On Monday afternoon he told me he had five over full price offers and was expecting a sisth by days end. He suggested that I skip trying to show the house. It would be futile. 

Another agent held an open house this past Sunday. It rained almost all day long on Sunday. Yet they came in spite of the rain - about eighty of them. The agent said he had received received multiple over-asking offers. I asked to show the house on Monday morning. There were two separate buyer groups lined up to enter as we exited the house. 

Watch this blog in the next couple of weeks. I may listing something interesting.
 

It isn't easy. It isn't impossible. Work with the right person whoever that may be.

Debra Winger's Chair or How I Spent My Summer Vactation

Not too long before the pandemic a friend and I traveled to New York City in mid August for a few days. I never experienced such oppressing heat in my life. All eight million residents swarmed around me wherever I went. It was like being dropped into a snake pit. It was a near fatal mistake which I vowed to never repeat. A few days later we rented a car and drove to the Catskills to stay at a friend's house in Calicoon Center, New York. The temperature dropped by maybe thirty degrees and the million of people diminished to a couple of dozen. 

 

We had planned to stay four days in our friend from Key West's bungalow and then drive to Boston. However, upon arrival we discovered another woman friend of the owner had moved into the house along with her aged father. She apparently arrived first and then and called the owner to advise she popped into Callicoon Center and needed a place to stay. They had just completed a cross continent journey in their travel trailer staying with friends along the way. When she learned of our pending arrival she agreed to move back into the travel trailer until we left.

The bungalow was furnished like a vignette in a Ralph Lauren Home Furnishings store except the furniture and decor were purchased at yard sales and thrift stores. Everything was perfectly imperfect. I don't think we had television or air conditioning - not that we need either.

The owner's friend showed up at the house several times while we there. Each time on one pretext or another. I think she was making sure we were not taking in too much of the essence of the place. She would walk right inside without knocking to check on our well being. One morning she brought in a chair that was taking up too much space in the travel trailer. She said the chair once belonged to Debra Winger - they were friends in Arizona, I think. She felt sorry for Debra having to work with Ashton Kutcher in The Ranch. She (the vagabond friend) despised Ashton Kutcher. The chair fit right into the decorating scheme of mix-matched decor. This place was filled with little treasures that once belonged to other people. They, perhaps, found their final home in Callicoon Center across the street with no name overlooking a green field.  This is how second homes should be furnished. Simply and cheaply and comfortably. 

The morning of our second day was totally unlike the preceding torrid days in the city. A light rain followed us as we drove the little roads from town to town. We drove to Bethel Woods to see the Woodstock site. It was the 47th Anniversary of Woodstock. We discussed the legend of how the hippies made their way to this field out in middle of nowhere and how crazy it must have been to be there. Other old and gray people were taking selfies there that day. It made me smile and remember being young. But I got over it. We left Calicoon Center a day ahead schedule.

Debra Winger's chair fit right into that house. Perfectly fit in.

1221 Margaret Street, Key West - Old Town

I got a chance to preview 1221 Margaret Street a few weeks ago. I was really impressed. Really! I have written about this small group of single family homes built at the edge of Old Town in 1999. Some share a rear driveway which allowed the developer to build big houses on smaller lots than official building code required. Note the two off street parking spaces on either side of the front entry. Let's look inside.

All of the houses replicated the revival style architecture of our historic homes. The builder created new interiors that had the look of older homes. The owner of this property undid the original and remade a better version that brings this home into the 21st Century with pizazz. Walls were removed, floors replace, new kitchen added, bath rooms upgraded, and on and on. 

The listing Realtor describes the space as "striking sophisticated interior that has been professionally designed and decorated. Huge Chef's kitchen with Hansen and Bringle custom cabinetry and Dade County Pine accents throughout the home." I have been inside many hoes with built in the 1990s with similar desgin and interiror layout. This is the best renovation I have seen. You just have to stop and look and take it all in. It is that good.

Glass panel doors open from the living room out tto the pool and spa. There is a stand alone two story guest cottage at the rear. The master bedroom is located on the second floor rear of the main house. It has doors that open out to a private deck also overlooking the pool.

The first floor is entirely devoted to family living space whereas the second floor is the cloistered master suite which has front and rear decks. The staircase delivers guests to the third floor which has two additional bedrooms each with en-suite bath.

The guest cottage abuts the communal rear driveway but this house has dual parking spaces in front. I mention the driveway only to show that the space is not occupied by another house.

I have mixed feelings about the guest cottage. It is one of the very best I have seen. It has a mini-kitchen (which is fully stocked with dozens of mini bottles), a full bath, and a full second story bedroom. First floor and second floor walls were partially removed to create a more open environment. I was just awed by the space and level of finish. That's why I have mixed feelings. I feel the brother-in-law will never leave. Ever. 

This home is located in the X flood zone just four blocks from upper Duval and four blocks from the White Street arts distinct. The Atlantic Ocean is a short bike ride to the south. On a good day you can be just about anywhere in Key West in five minutes or so by car. On a bad day if you are following a Conch Train or Trolley Car or a tourist driving a golf cart, bring your lunch.

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datashet and listing photos of 1221 Margaret Street, Key West offered for sale at $3,450,000. 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.