Casa Marina

Casa Marina is the area of Key West, not usually well defined, that surrounds the Casa Marina Resort, hence the name. The hotel was a destination built by Henry Flagler's railroad company to give passengers  a place to stay at the end of the line, unless they were taking a ferry to Cuba. Usually the hotel is displayed from the front with all it's pomp but I as usual had other plans on my lunch break.

The hotel has a great long beach front, long by Key West standards, as do all the big hotels. Guests like to feel they are having a proper seaside vacation. The back of the hotel is less glamorous:

The public access to the little beach has been closed off by an attractive chunk of cement...

....and some cardboard and ever useful duct tape! In retrospect I wish I had tried to pick up the cement, maybe it was a Hollywood prop made of Styrofoam! I have no idea what this is all about:

You never know when you walk Key West what kind of buildings you may find and this administrative and employee housing structures behind the Casa Marina are an example of random faded beauties:

And the modern structures "in the Key West style" across the street:

And always, wherever you are you need never be too far from an ocean glimpse:

At Seminole and Alberta.

Casa Marina

I remember overhearing, many years ago, one of those conversations between tourists speaking about their Key West vacation.

The comment I recall overhearing as they pored over their map was to the effect that they were surprised by how many districts and named areas there are in such a small island town.

They had a point, so much so I have never quite forgotten the remark and it comes to the forefront of my mind when I am walking through and thinking about Casa Marina.

Casa Marina's boundaries are not completely clear to me but like the justice said about the definition of pornography, I know it when I see it.

Expansive homes, garages, greenery and order all define Casa Marina.  By North American standards the houses may not necessarily be particularly large, and some look opulent thanks to the abundant tropical foliage alone, but in Key West ample parking, car ports and garages, watertight windows and an absence of stores and tourist attractions make this neighborhood as special.

It is common sport among the working class in Key West to look at real estate listings from "back home" wherever that may be, land of snowdrifts and seasons probably, and see how much your money will buy in those places forgotten in the mists of time. 

It's a mug's game to compare housing here with there. In absolute terms Key West is not as expensive as other exclusive enclaves in Florida but the isolation, the absence of regular housing and the relatively hopeless wages deter the ambitious from living working and raising a family here.

Casa Marina is not for the likes of us, and considering my home will be 72 square feet next year you might reassure yourself I never was a candidate for opulent living.  

I see obligation and responsibility when I walk the neighborhood and I am glad there are others dedicated to the maintenance and care of these historic homes. I grew up in an old large home and was glad to put an ocean between me and it, and would do so again for the freedom of the open road.

I was following Rusty down one of the ample, shaded sidewalks  when I was waylaid by a  tall sinewy Nordic blond woman who blurted at me that she was from Idaho. Oh dear I said, I'm sorry to hear that but I suppose someone has to live there. 

It turns out she was jogging as you do in Idaho apparently, in skin tight clothes which do not allow for the transport of cellphones and when her problem manifested itself on her run, she found herself helpless. Especially as she didn't know who to call. Until the off duty dispatcher showed up dragged by his dog.

A bird had fallen from a nest and she had propped it up on some gravel and was unsure what to do next. Oh well, I blurted before I put the filter in, I do this for a living so I might as well do it on my day off for free. She was shockingly grateful and made me wish she could teach people how to call 911...but I got the wild bird rescue rolling  and used Rusty as my excuse to leave her to monitor the avian rescue program on her own.

With the natural order restored and the time space continuum once again intact Casa Marina slipped back into serenity and ease. Hmm I thought to myself, seeing the Sprinter across the street, they live in vans around here? Probably not a stranger I figured, as someone would be bound to call it in...

Most people know Casa Marina as the resort on the beach in this neighborhood and it's been around for a while. Henry Flagler had it built as a destination for his travelers, those who chose not to take the ferry to Cuba in the 1920s. 

Flagler was pretty smart and when he decided to run railroad tracks up and down the east coast of Florida he figured he'd better give people a reason to visit so he built resorts in St Augustine, Palm Beach and Key West.

The Keys extension never made money but it got a bunch of New Yorkers to Cuba and the Keys for winter and it supplied tropical fruit in good order to people in the northeast for which they must have been grateful.

Not all Casa Marina is vast single family dwellings, as witnessed by this apartment building:

You could see a pretty little cottage like this in many areas of Florida, not just here:

And I have been photographing this magnificent wall of symmetrical shapes for years and I still don't feel like I've cracked it. I'd probably get stopped for loitering before I figure out the most interesting angle but I'm still trying:

One day before I leave I am going to rent a golf cart and ride around with a big grin and a long line of cars forced to follow me. I've never driven one and I think its time to add the experience to my long list of vehicles driven.

A house with a pool...dream on little Rusty. 

And while I was pondering life and reflections he stepped smartly out of the frame as usual leaving me in the mirror alone.  

Open The Flood Gates

Next week, technically next month, the roadblocks come down and visitors come back to the Keys and from everything I can gauge there will be no shortage of people to bring hotels to their fifty percent maximum permitted capacity. I have mixed feelings about all this as I have about the whole pandemic and the national response to it. I cannot for the life of me understand how we blunder about in this country turning everything into a political game of ping pong without facts, relying on opinions based on hope and with no numbers at all. I dread to think what Pearl Harbor would have ended up being if the greatest generation acted and thought as we do. Nevertheless...we are stuck with it.

Bearing in mind disruption to my life has been minimal inasmuch as my wife and I have continued to work and get paid, she for teaching from home and me for taking  911 calls. It isn't fair to ask me if I want the closure to remain in place as I have found the threat from the virus to have been very well contained by the Sheriff's determined action.On the other hand for those who are barely hanging on, told not to work and receiving no government support of any kind the question becomes an impossible one.

Given that Florida's unemployment system was deliberately wrecked by Governor, now Senator Rick Scott to improve his unemployment numbers one can hardly be surprised if people are desperate to get some income. If you think I am exaggerating Senator Scott's awfulness I invite you to read the incomparable Diane Roberts' column on the subject at the Florida Phoenix HERE. We live in difficult times for the poor and marginal and the virus hasn't helped.

I expect my wife and I will continue to quarantine ourselves as much as we can and from what I understand we are not alone in deciding to leave public social activities to Keys visitors. I cannot conceive of getting on a  commercial flight at the moment after all the effort we have made to contain the virus and keep it out of our lives. And the small matter of my wife's compromised immune system will make it impossible for her to mix publicly with people from all over the country until this business is finally put to bed. Self quarantine is not only possible for us and desirable, it is the only way forward as the Keys welcome back visitors.

Those among us who feel less cautiously inclined can lead the way and be the canaries in the coal mine. For some this will be an economic necessity as I said but for others there will be boredom or bravado to provide the push to socialize. I am not much good on Facebook as I am not inclined to hold strong opinions one way or the other on the virus and treatment and masks and I don't much feel like yelling about all this. Mostly I am confused and puzzled. It seems scientists are too as the CDC has changed its guidelines once again also. Only politicians and their minions are certain about anything it seems.

I will stay socially distant and where I cannot  I shall wear a mask. I have no idea how effective my surgical masks are but the way I see it they can't hurt if people are going perforce to get too close. Fortunately for my wife she is teaching from home for the rest of this school year before slipping into summer school and summer vacation so no decision on her job and her last pre-retirement year need be made yet. But if the virus comes back in the Fall as some scientists predict I wonder what we do then?

I am very cautious when it comes to firm statements about coronavirus because no one seems to know anything for sure not even what it does to us once we are infected. What was a 'flu has become more serious it seems, making blood clots in its spare time to slow the transfer of oxygen. Previously it affected old people now young people are getting sick, even children. Whatever next? Oh yes, US Navy sailors once infected and recovered have got the illness a second time, and as they are on a ship under close observation, thus they would seem to be a reliable control group. So, no inbuilt immunity then? 

No wonder we are all getting stressed out and nervous. I have developed massive amounts of empathy for people who lived through yellow fever epidemics in Key West (and elsewhere) in centuries past. Until Dr Gorgas supervising the health of Panama Canal workers worked it all out no one understood the relationship between mosquitoes and yellow fever. The 19th century in Key West was riddled with deadly pandemics like this one only with a much higher mortality rate.

Bubonic plague and rats were not connected for centuries and people died in droves, horrible deaths without a ventilator in sight. We aren't used to this sort of thing at all. The temptation has always been to just let things go and hope for the best. Numbers of deaths are relatively low and one could imagine keeping the economy going might be easier in the long run.

On the other hand watching the food supply chain get messed up by the numbers of sick people working in close quarters makes you realize, I hope, that profound sickness, never mind actual death, can have a hugely disruptive influence on our way of life. I fully expect to see surprising developments in the Keys as we move into June and the return to business as more or less usual. I hope I shall be pleasantly surprised even though my neighbors tend to the pessimistic with a knot of loud scoffers in their midst. Coronavirus has outstayed its welcome. I'm glad they suffered through the years of World War Two deprivations before I was born. It turns out I would have been insufferably impatient with all the time spent waiting for disaster to strike.

(And if the last photograph makes you go "Aha! Cartier Bresson! you get extra points).

It's a famous photograph by the French master who got people going on the idea of photographing casual moments, so called street photography. Some less than charitable critics suggest he had his  assistant race down the hill repeatedly on his bicycle until Cartier Bresson got his decisive moment correctly framed. The staircase is still there and is made immortal by this apparently banal picture. So I reversed the view and took the picture above of an equally banal spiral staircase...

Casa Marina

I have heard people ask if a certain part of the city is safe, as though violent crime is rife just as it appears to be as they sit at home agog in front of their television sets. The sad truth is that life in Key West is far less glamorous and lived at a far slower pace than outsiders seem to expect. 

The purchase of a home in Key West is less dependent on the quality of a neighborhood than on the type of people who live next door. You will hear residents complain about the parties in houses rented to vacationers who think loud music and pool parties are why Key West exists. They aren't completely wrong but their unfortunate neighbors think they are as they ponder an early start to go to work the  next day. Casa Marina Resort in a  time of coronavirus: 

Meanwhile one can identify individual neighborhoods in Key West.  I was walking Casa Marina after the rain as I wanted and I hope Rusty was okay with a change. 

Casa Marina is the upscale neighborhood in Key West. If you are a moneyed Conch you avoid the city by living on Key Haven at Mile Marker Five or distant Shark Key at Mile Marker Ten. If you are an incomer who wants tropical winters and at the same time demand typical American conveniences like roofs that don't leak and central air conditioning and a yard you can swing a rooster in, you buy in Casa Marina.

Here you will find a muddle of architecture and much greenery and cars that were not built in Detroit. Every rule has it's exception but Casa Marina conforms for the most part to my generalizations. I like it in summer for the shade offered by the greenery and year round this is a neighborhood fails to roll up its sidewalks so one can walk like a normal person from Up North. Sidewalks in Key West vary between bizarre narrow slivers, pavement resembling a ploughed field and no sidewalk at all. I learned that wheelchair locomotion and uncertain walking with a walker frame can be quite complicated. Not in Casa Marina. Here you may mobility challenged and still get around like Wiley Coyote.

Casa Marina is actually named for the Casa Marina a massive pile built by Henry Flagler as a destination for his railway tourists. They were bused across the city from the coastguard base where the train terminus was located on the north side to his hotel two miles away on the south side. In those days the cargo wagons were driven onto ferries to transport goods to and from Havana while passengers walked aboard a ship that would take them to Cuba. Others lounged around at the Casa Marina resort built in the style of other Flagler resorts in Palm Beach and St Augustine. The Standard oil millionaire figured he had to give train passengers somewhere to wile away their winters in this tropical paradise if they were to ride his trains.

During World War Two the military used the hotel and then it was abandoned in the way Key West has of wasting its greatest assets. Nowadays it is a first class resort with all proper amenities so you can enjoy Key West without mixing with hoi polloi any more than you want to. So it is with the housing, expansive well forested and easy to navigate. Oh and if you need a dentist Claude my cheerful and very capable tooth puller ( he loves pulling teeth and does it painlessly) has an office here which is as close as I get to sleeping in Casa Marina in his comfortable dentist chair waiting for the numbness to set in.

Casa Marina

I remember overhearing two tourists poring over a map of the city quite a few years ago. One said to the other in a tone of wonder: "I had no idea there were so many neighborhoods in a  town this small." Casa Marina district is one such neighborhood. 

Casa Marina must be named after the old Flagler resort hotel that still  stands on the south shore of Key West:

In that vein Casa Marina is known as the expensive neighborhood in a town where nothing is inexpensive.

This is a place of much greenery, high walls and expansive homes. Not much what people think of Key West even though there are smaller homes and some old Florida homes here as well, ground floor louvered window places for the 1960s. 

 If you want a  house with modern conveniences like weatherproof windows, central air and large gardens and garages this is the place.

 It's alsoa good place to ride a bike or go for a walk to see what you might see: