Key West The Florida Keys

Key West: Founded in 1829

Everyone flocks to Miami and Palm Beach during the winter and early spring seasons, but don’t overlook Key West, surrounded by sparking blue water with charm to spare. This picturesque city, founded in 1829, is especially interesting if you’re a history or architecture buff, or have kids that like shipwrecks, buried treasure, and running around Civil War-era forts while jumping on old cannons. I was there for the famous Race World Offshore Key West Championships, and all the high-speed powerboats raced around Key West Harbor at speeds of up to 140 mile per hour while surrounded by massive yachts whose passengers got an up-close view. I was staying at Pier House and my balcony faced all the fast-paced action. This hotel has the perfect address in the center of town, next to Duval Street, Key West’s main drag. Walking in this area, you see all the Victorian mansions and you can walk to most of the important historical attractions. You can also rent a classic Victorian and bring the entire family for a fun trip. DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT KEY WEST’S SPECTULAR SUNSET EVERYDAY AROUND 515 M FROM THE TERRCE AT NAME THE BAR AT THE BOTTOM OF ???? STREET.

Key West was controlled throughout the years by Spain, Britain and Cuba, and was home to Bahamians and pirates at times, until finally, in 1822, the United States claimed it. American businessman John W. Simonton, who purchased the island from a Spanish naval officer for $2,000, immediately started using it as we do today – spending the winter there and returning to his home in Washington, D.C. for the warmer months. Like any red-blooded businessperson, Simonton looked to develop the island, divided it into lots, and lobbied to establish a naval base. Industry followed, and by the 1830s, Key West was the richest city per capita in the U.S., and by 1889 it was the largest and wealthiest city in Florida. In 1912 it was connected to the mainland by a railway, which was destroyed by a hurricane in 1935 and then replaced by an automobile roadway which became part of U.S. Rte. 1.

Famous residents

Over the years its Victorian charms attracted a who’s who of renowned residents, the most famous of which was Ernest Hemingway, whose home is now a museum. Many other literary lions have made their homes in Key West, including poets Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens, playwright Tennessee Williams, and authors Shel Silverstein, who lived there until his death, and Judy Blume, who still lives there. Prolific author Meg Cabot, whose “Princess Diaries” series of books were adapted into movies starring Anne Hathaway, is also a resident. Other famous folks who have called Key West home include President Harry S. Truman, who spent winters on the island while in office, and his home was dubbed the “Little White House; fashion designer Calvin Klein; Boston Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo; and actress Kelly McGillis who even owned a restaurant in town. And of course, Jimmy Buffett, who rose to musical fame while living in Key West and established his Margaritaville empire there.

What to do in Key West

Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum

Ernest Hemingway moved to Key West from Paris in the 1920s, and later his wife Pauline’s family bought the couple this Spanish style walled compound where the Nobel Prize winner penned works including “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, “Green Hills of Africa”, and the novel “To Have and Have Not.” Hemingway lived in the house from 1931 until 1938, and his ex-wife Pauline remained there until her death in 1961. It is now a museum and National Historic Landmark, and houses Hemingway memorabilia, including his typewriter, his iron-framed bed and a urinal, now a fountain , he brought home from Sloppy Joe’s bar. Roaming the grounds are over 40 cats, many of them six-toed descendants of Snow White, a white six-toed feline given to Papa Hemingway by a ship’s caption. The house was one of the first in Key West to have indoor plumbing and a swimming pool, which was a major undertaking at that time, and extravagantly expensive costing $20,000, around $250,000 today. While Hemingway had planned the pool, his wife Pauline oversaw its construction while he was away, working as a war correspondent, covering the Spanish Civil War. Legend has it that upon returning, Hemingway was so enraged by the costs of the half-finished project that he flung a penny to the ground and said, “Pauline, you’ve spent all but my last penny, so you might as well have that!” She had the penny embedded into the cement surrounding the pool, where it remains to this day. hemingwayhome.com

Mel Fisher’s Treasure Museum

Mel Fisher was a treasure hunter whose most famous find was the Atocha, a Spanish galleon that sunk in 1622, from which Fisher’s company recovered $450 million worth of, well, treasure, including 40 tons of gold and silver, over 100,000 Spanish coins knowns as “pieces of eight,” Colombian emeralds and other valuable artifacts. This motherlode was especially sweet for Fisher, who had spent 16 years and a lot of money fruitlessly searching for the sunken treasure until his shipwreck recovery team discovered it in 1985. A 1986 movie about his life, “Dreams of Gold: The Mel Fisher Story,” starred Cliff Robertson and Loretta Swit.

The Treasure Museum gives a fascinating look at the recovery, and has artifacts from this and other shipwrecks. melfisher.com/default.html

Truman’s Little White House.

The Little White House was built in 1890 as naval command headquarters and earned its current name when President Harry S. Truman used the place as his winter home from 1946 through 1952. In 1911 it had been turned into a single-family dwelling, and President Taft stayed there in 1912, on his way to Panama to view the under-construction canal. Thomas Edison stayed in the house during WWI, helping the U.S. Navy to develop underwater weapons. After Truman’s visits, Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy stayed in the house and held important meetings with world leaders there. Later, presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton stayed at the property, and Gen. Colin Powell held peace talks there while Secretary of State. The museum displays Truman memorabilia in the rooms where he and his wife, Bess Truman, lived, including his famous “The Buck Stops Here” desk sign. President Trump made a stop in Key West in 2018 but didn’t stay in the Little White House.
trumanlittlewhitehouse.com

Fort Zachary Taylor

A visit to Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park is a great way to spend a fun day, roaming the walkways and scaling the walls of the Civil War-era fort, a beautiful relic dating from 1845. Considered a hidden gem of Key West, the site, named for president Zachary Taylor and known to locals as “Fort Zach”, was active in the Civil War, in which Key West, as a U.S. Naval base, sided with Northern abolitionists, unlike the rest of the South. Troops were sent there to prevent the fort from falling into Confederate hands. The fort was also instrumental during the Spanish-American War of 1898, World Wars 1 and 2, and during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Shipwreck Museum

The Key West Shipwreck Museum is not large, but there’s a lot of lore to soak up exploring 400 years of shipwreck salvage in the Florida Keys. You enter Key West’s past here, as actors, films and artifacts from long-submerged ships bring you to 1856, when the Isaac Allerton sank. Discovered in 1985, it turned out to be one of the richest finds in history. The museum displays treasures this and other wrecks. Try to lift the silver bar salvaged from the Nuestra Senora de las Maravillas, a Spanish galleon that sunk off the Bahamas in 1656, and be sure to climb to the top of the 65-foot lookout tower and enjoy the view. keywestshipwreck.com

Ghost & Gravestones Tour

If you’ve got young kids, definitely get on the haunted trolley tour and go ghost hunting. This evening bus tour is creepy good fun, taking you past old homes haunted by former inhabitants, the Key West cemetery said to be rife with suffering, lost souls, Captain Tony’s haunted Saloon and the East Martello Fort where you’ll meet Robert the Doll, a bit like Chucky from those scary movies – except this isn’t a movie. trolleytours.com/key-west

Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden

The Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden is a relaxing oasis away from the bustle, a great way to spend a couple of hours. The 15-acre space has many rare specimen plants that are marked so you can learn about them, but this is not the typical “groomed” botanical garden – it’s more of a natural landscape, showing us what Key West looked like in its natural state, before the hotels and condos arrived. There are boardwalk paths, making a walk in the forest easy, and you’ll find examples of “champion” tree specimens here. www. keywest.garden

Key West Aquarium

The Aquarium has exhibits that are both educational and fun. You can get up close to sea turtles, alligators, sharks and jellyfish, and you can touch creatures like conch, sea urchins, hermit crabs and even cow nose stingrays! (Don’t worry, they’re friendly.) This aquarium has humane policies; its alligators are on loan from a nearby farm, and when they reach a certain size or the age of 3, whichever comes first, they are returned to the farm and replaced by younger alligators. The aquarium’s four resident sea turtles have suffered injuries and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has deemed them non-releasable, that is, they would not survive on their own in the open ocean. The aquarium works with world renowned veterinarians, and two of these turtles were the first in the world to receive biomimetic prosthetic flippers. keywestaquarium.com

Pelican Path historic walking tour

Key West is compact and extremely walkable, and walking tours abound. One of the best, the Pelican Path historic walking tour, is free. It’s self-guided, takes 1 to 2 hours, and there’s a printed version you can print out, or an app, Explore Historic Key West, you can download for free. The tour takes you to historic buildings, like the Old City Hall, but also to all of Key West’s homes of historical importance, including the Audubon House where naturalist John James Audubon worked and lived, the Robert Frost cottage and the home restored by Jerry Herman, the Broadway lyricist and composer whose credits include Hello Dolly and Mame. The guide is easy to follow as it starts at Mallory Square in the center of town and contains directions from each stop to the next one: i.e. “TURN RIGHT HERE & CONTINUE ALONG FRONT ST. to CLINTON SQUARE.” This tour is from the experts at Old Island Restoration Foundation, which also runs the Oldest House Museum at 322 Duval Street, which is open to the public and is – surprise – the oldest house in South Florida, circa 1829. oldesthousemuseum.com/walking-tour. oldesthousemuseum.com

Go fishing just like Papa Hemingway and President Truman

Key West is a fisherman’s paradise, with options for deep sea fishing in the Florida Straits for game fish, Hemingway’s favorite, as well as fishing around shipwreck reefs for snapper and grouper, and along inshore channels and mangrove islands. Guides and charters for all levels are available. https://fla-keys.com/key-west/fishing