Gregory Peck and President Harry Truman were said to have played poker in the dining room
Location: Key West, Florida
Price: $7.235 million
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and novelist Philip Caputo once called this palace of a house in Key West’s tony Casa Marina district home.
“The house is kind of grand for Key West, and it’s very close to the ocean,” said listing agent Brenda Donnelly, of Brenda Donnelly Real Estate. “It’s probably one of the largest estates here.” It takes up half a block, she said. “The lot is 20,000 square feet, which is unheard of here. This is very much like Palm Beach.”
The Casa Marina Court home was built in the early 1930s by A. Maitland Adams, a business partner of Charles Thompson, one of Ernest Hemingway’s fishing companions, according to the listing. In turn, Thompson was friends with Gregory Peck and Harry Truman, “and they were said to have played cards in the house,” Donnelly said. “It was probably poker. This is a big poker town.”
The pool is quite large by Key West standards.
Terry Martin
Caputo, whose best-known book is “A Rumor of War,” a 1977 memoir about his experiences during the Vietnam War, penned “Indian Country” (1987) while living in the house, she said. The second floor of the carriage house was his writing studio.
Previous owners took down the garage/carriage house and made it another bedroom, she said.
The grounds hold a tranquil meditation garden.
Terry Martin
The gated house has some of its original architectural details, including hand-hewn moldings and mahogany railings and 14-foot ceilings, “which is something else that’s unheard of here,” Donnelly said.
Recent updates include new stone floors, a new roof, high-impact windows and doors, and a fireplace, according to the listing.
“The second-floor primary bedroom suite has a private porch, and there is also a guest apartment on that level,” Donnelly said. “It’s just one room, but it has a kitchen and a full bath and a porch overlooking the pool. From the rooftop deck, you have good ocean views, and you can see the White Street fishing pier,” she said.
Stats:
The 4,666-square-foot home has five bedrooms, four full bathrooms and one partial bathroom. It sits on a 0.46-acre lot.
Amenities:
Amenities include a pool surrounded by an elaborate courtyard with a meditation garden, an outdoor shower, a fireplace, a pergola, a guest apartment and a roof deck.
Neighborhood Notes:
“The house is one block from the beach, five minutes to the airport, five minutes to the Hemingway house, five minutes to the southernmost point” of the continental U.S., Donnelly said.
The Casa Marina neighborhood has larger lots as well and “is where people move after they’ve grown tired of Old Town,” she said. “This is a quieter spot.”