Classic Magazine #1

Key West confusion: It’s a study, not a decision, on channel widening

It’s a study. Not a decision. Fact-finding for future choices. Come October, Key West voters will decide if they want the city to ask the Army Corps of Engineers to do a feasibility study on the potential widening of the channel that connects Key West to the Atlantic Ocean — and its cruise ships. Problem [...]

I am not sharing my Key West bathroom with an iguana

Fair warning: Not for the iguana lovers. If you get all muggly-snuggly over your resident iguanas, go read something else. Right now. Because … Smashed. Dead. I am not sharing my Key West bathroom with an iguana. Challenging enough to share it with four cats, a husband and the brown anoles with no shame about [...]

Y’all come now, ya hear: Everyone says “yes” to Key West

Y’all come now, ya hear. You know how polite people invite house guests to come stay a while? And, how polite people smile and say “sure” and never show up? That’s not Key West. Nope, invite house guests to Key West and they actually come. As I told my husband, “finally, we live in a [...]

Key West Renovation: Work in progress

January and February were demolition and construction months. In addition to the outside work, interior walls came down, floors were removed and the makeshift kitchen was installed in the living room — minus any water. We used the shower for dishes. But, day by day, we could see the architect’s drawings coming alive in three [...]

The picket fence with sliding gate for parking fronts the re-designed front porch, new roof line and kitchen with its trellis.

Key West Renovation: Curb appeal transformation

Watching the dream in three dimensions Built in 1953, 1310 Olivia was a simple, clean-lined concrete block structure. Essentially a rectangle with a double gabled, pitched metal roof, side porch as the main entrance and a small front extension that was the living room, the house was typical of mid-century houses built in The Meadows [...]

You know you’re old when … it’s time for a bike with three wheels

With age, wisdom: Ditch the two-wheeler. Here’s the deal: If one be post-40 (I could argue for post-30) and were last on a bicycle at 10, then one ought not be riding one in Key West — or anywhere else for that matter. Key West brings out wobblers and weavers. Those “how-hard-could-it-be” folks who believe [...]

The chickens of Key West: Disney couldn’t do better

Gotta love those Key West chickens If Disney did chickens, they’d be Key West chickens. Arrogant, independent, decidedly territorial, and, OK, cocky, Key West’s 2,000 or so chickens — though who’s counting I can’t imagine — rank up there with the six-toed Hemingway cats as tourist magnets and the scourge of locals wanting to sleep [...]

Key West Renovation: Stockade fence

Trading privacy for an open, approachable fence Key West and the Historic Architecture Review Committee (HARC) are hardliners on fences. Keep them short, white and picketed. No bricks, stucco or stockades in the Old Town historic areas. There was one loophole if we’d wanted to keep the tall, stockade privacy fence: We could repair it. [...]