HOUSEBOAT ROW, A KEY WEST SYMBOL, ORDERED TO WEIGH ANCHOR

Publish date: 2024-07-21

KEY WEST, FLA. -- Everyone visiting Key West notices the houseboats along Houseboat Row: the white doll-house cottage with the picket fence, the big mint-green double-decker with the mural of a woman in a bathtub.

Twenty-six of these dwellings float along the sea wall here, all expressions of their owners' fancy. Over the decades, they have been photographed, featured in tourist guidebooks and recognized as enduring symbols of the Florida Keys and particularly this fabled outpost, the last in the string of islands dribbling off the tip of Florida.

But soon, the state of Florida has decreed, residents are going to have to pick up anchor and leave. After years of legal wrangling over its right to exist, Houseboat Row may be about to disappear.

"The simple fact of the matter is, they don't want environmentally sound live-aboard communities. They don't want any live-aboards, period. It's a lifestyle choice the tight butts on shore just don't want," said Peter Anderson, 51, who has lived aboard his pale-blue "Casa del Sol y Luna" for 14 years.

The fate of Houseboat Row has touched a raw nerve here in this town of 28,000, the southernmost town in the continental United States, where romantic legends of a quirky and colorful past are colliding with the realities of growth and the demands of the rest of the world. It also is a place, many long-term residents lament, where things are increasingly not as they used to be.

Although Key West built its reputation on being different, independent, apart -- a haven for writers, artists and eccentric characters -- its income largely derives from outsiders. Three million tourists a year come to enjoy its calm blue-green waters, white beaches, friendly dolphins and easygoing style. As in any haven that has been discovered, popularity has brought a mixed bag of change. To almost everyone's chagrin, Newsweek recently mentioned Key West as a candidate for "most spoiled vacation spot in America," citing the proliferation of T-shirt shops and margarita bars.

If Houseboat Row represents the old Key West, with its earliest inhabitants dating back to the 1950s, it also has been a longtime point of some controversy, even among residents. Many think Houseboat Row should be left alone as a tourist attraction, a semi-historic site; others resent what they see as the "free ride" enjoyed by the vessels' residents, who pay no rent for their spots along the sea wall.

The state's position is simple: The dwellers of Houseboat Row have no right to live on "sovereign submerged lands," held in trust by the state for the public's use, no matter how long they have lived there, said John Costigan, deputy general counsel for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Residents have exhausted legal options, having lost every court case over the last five years, he said, and soon, like it or not, they will have to leave.

"This is no different than someone moving a mobile home on the front lawn of the Capitol, saying, I'm going to live here,' " Costigan said. "Even though it is submerged land, it belongs to all the people. They have the right to swim and fish and use that water, and these people have preempted this public land for their use."

As Florida's population has exploded, and its waterways have grown more congested, unauthorized houseboat-living has become a vexing problem. Untold numbers of vessels, including hundreds in the waters around Key West alone, according to town officials, have dropped anchor and settled down. Doing so, the officials complain, violates state regulations that bar onboard living in a band extending three miles out into the Atlantic Ocean and about 25 miles into the Gulf of Mexico.

Various local governments have begun addressing the problem, Costigan said, passing ordinances limiting the amount of time a boat can dally in its marinas to between 72 and 96 hours. The City of Vero Beach prohibits dropping anchor in city limits within the Intracoastal Waterway unless there is an emergency.

"Some people would say if we don't get a handle on this, it can begin to look like Hong Kong harbor. My understanding is, you can walk across the vessels there," Costigan said.

On Houseboat Row, about 60 residents, including retirees, artists, schoolteachers, waitresses and construction workers, live aboard 26 colorful vessels. The homes range from imposing multilevels, complete with skylights and wraparound porches, to a humble floating bungalow that seems patched together with plywood. Everywhere are lush plants and window boxes of flowers.

Residents are frustrated that the state has not been swayed by a January referendum in which 70 percent of Key West voters agreed that Houseboat Row should be saved, as long as the owners begin to pay sewer fees and other city costs. They also are concerned that Key West, one of the most expensive places to live in Florida, where condominiums alongside the trash dump sell for about $300,000, has a shortage of affordable housing. With local marinas full and no other property available for development on this tightly packed island of six square miles, residents and city officials fear that there is nowhere for the houseboats to relocate.

On July 28, Gov. Lawton Chiles (D) and his Cabinet, who were threatening imminent eviction with the legal battle won, granted the city an extra three months to devise a plan for the future of Houseboat Row. But Michael Halpern, a Key West attorney who represents the dwellers, has no illusions that this is any kind of long-lasting reprieve. And City Manager Julio Avael agreed that although an emergency task force has been organized to address the problem, the community's survival "looks pretty bleak."

The row, on the eastern side of the island along Route A-1-A near the Key West International Airport, began in 1957 when the city invited author Margaret Dennis, who wrote "The Sea Dog" with her illustrator-husband, Morgan, to drop anchor along the wall. Over the years, other vessels joined the Dennises, including several owned by now-famous treasure hunter Mel Fisher.

"What drew me was the beauty of it, the serenity of it, the fact that it is affordable," said resident Anderson, whose home is almost obscured from the road by leafy mangrove trees.

Anderson, who writes a column for a local newspaper and has run for mayor, gives his occupation as secretary-general of the Conch Republic, which came about in 1982 when city officials, outraged by a blockade of illegal immigrants set up by the U.S. Border Patrol, staged a secession, forcing the swift removal of the blockade and spawning an annual festival. The flag of the Conch Republic, featuring a golden sun on a bright-blue field with a conch-shell in the middle, still flies all over town.

Anderson estimates he has spent about $70,000 customizing his houseboat, the high point of life on the water being the birth on board of his daughter, Mikaela, now 10, in the Jacuzzi. "When we took her to day care the first time, she used to get land-sick and fall down, she had been on the water so much," he said.

His neighbors on the row include a former Navy mechanic who lives in "The Hobbit Hole"; an artist whose paintings adorn her "Aquarius" inside and out; and a building contractor who has lived for more than 10 years in his "Conch Cottage."

Like Anderson, everyone feels picked on. The area around the sea wall is not navigable, residents say, nor is it suitable for swimming. There is nothing about Houseboat Row, supporters insist, that denies the public anything or causes any damage.

"We have never been accused in any court of law of environmental damage or anything like that. We've never been accused of polluting," Anderson said. "My houseboat is a floating upside-down reef that supports a vast array of marine life -- crustaceans, soft corals, hard corals -- you name it, it's living under my house. I am the environment." CAPTION: Houseboat Row includes floating mansions and creaky shacks. Forty-one years after the first one dropped anchor, Florida is set to clear them away.

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HOUSEBOAT ROW, A KEY WEST SYMBOL, ORDERED TO WEIGH ANCHOR