This is the neighborhood that lies within 5 minutes of the city but lies apart from it far enough to make it suburban. I can't help but feel that the island's name was some marketing tool used in the 1960's or 70's to sell a "lifestyle" away from the urban decrepitude that was Old Town when the Navy was scaling back and the economy appeared in terminal decline.
There is a large swath of open space across from the gas station, an area known locally as the "Key Haven Truck Stop," a place where yes, truckers stage before entering the city, but also where people park vehicles for sale, boats on trailers and all manner of stuff, much to the annoyance of residents who don't fancy a truck stop as the entrance to their community, even one labelled in jest. Across from the truck stop is more open space, filled with Australian pines, trash, and from time to time the odd motorcycle...it may be cold, 69 degrees in the wake of a cold front, but the Bonneville is running again after a few days set aside for car driving.
This stretch of abandoned waterfront overlooking an almost entirely enclosed lagoon has been slated for development, which is hardly surprising. Even less surprising is the fact that people rose up in arms to complain about the plan to build some 43 homes around the seawall.
But what surprises me is that this area has been left to its own devices for as long as it has. My wife and I used to meet here occasionally and take Emma for walks, taking advantage of a soon to disappear open space. Perhaps not, at least not for a while, will it disappear. So far so good, with no signs yet of construction.
Key Haven itself is a curious community, lacking in amenity, devoid of personality and neither sparkling with architectural gems nor flourishing with botanical abundance. Its just kind of flat, and many of the houses lack any kind of tropical flair:
I think its relative old age (50 perhaps?) gives it a rather dated feel, like some of those Miami suburbs built outside downtown as experiments in urban planning with an emphasis on concrete order and cement block bungalows.
It's not a community that invites exploration and side walks are not seen in abundance, though there are elderly, peeling bicycle lanes painted on the main roadways, which surprised me:
The island reminded me of nothing quite so much as Grand Cayman, flat and subdued and begging a reason for a second visit. The fact is much of Key Haven is treated as a public parking lot for quasi abandoned boats, trailers and trucks: 
And when I stopped to photograph this alluring display of urban decay I attracted the irate attention of a nearby homeowner who came out and stood, silent but belligerent in the street while I turned out in the dead end, took a picture... 
...and came back out past him. He stepped back as I smiled breezily and rode by. The last I saw in my mirror he turned around and stumped back indoors as I disappeared out of his street. I guess he has attracted some unwanted attention for his sprawling public abandoned trailer lot...and must have wondered if I were documenting his lack of public spiritedness for some nefarious purpose. No such luck, I'm just a a wanderer with a camera.
Part of my actual self imposed mission, far from working as an outrider for Code Enforcement, was to seek out the home advertised on the real estate flyer that landed in my mailbox recently. I found it easily enough and it was as promoted, brand new looking in "move in" condition. I liked its multitude of sloping metal roofs:
And it sits on just one of several crowded canal front streets that eschew the eminently sensible notion of raising your precious home on flood-proof stilts. Which is not to say new homes aren't sprouting on Key Haven bringing with them the architectural motifs of McMansions from Up North.
I'm sure you can find any number of homes like these huddled round golf courses from Pensacola to Port Saint Lucie but they have always struck me as somewhat unsuitable for tropical construction. The lovely terracotta tile Mediterranean roofs for a start are just perfect for hurricane force winds to lift up and peel off in one hundred mile-per-hour winds. Steel roofs make sense. Then I wonder how you attach hurricane shutters to their abundance of nooks and crannies and half hidden windows...
Fortunately there are a few quirky homeowners even in Key Haven and this one I liked with its absurdist airplane parts front gate (Beware of the Dog and No Trespassing...just to add a touch of class) and this grotesque mishmash gateway to purgatory, begging for a touch of varnish and a pet for the guardian lions:
Key Haven enjoys the mixed benefits of canal frontage ,open water and easy access to the city, but its not a place that invites serene reflection, even in its most open viewpoints:
And the tiny urban park has a most unfriendly sign announcing it's for Members Only. As if this might be just the sort of magnet to attract hosts of undesirables, people just like me, bikers, or worse, if the gate wasn't posted Keep Out!
Key Haven doesn't speak to me, doesn't make me wish I lived in a low lying easily flooded home, right under the flight path of Navy jets just five miles from the fleshpots of Key West. It does have a couple of nice curves on the main road through the community which is nice,
but not enough to make me pine for the delights of this funky little neighborhood. I doubt they will miss me, or my motorcycle any more than I shall miss them.
