Before Chris Robinson became a Lower Keys fishing guide, he co-owned the All-Breeds Hot Dog Pound, tended bar for some 20 years at Key West’s landmark Chart Room and Louie’s Backyard, and shared adventures with Jimmy Buffett and other notables.

As a young Key West bartender in the 1970s and early '80s, Chris met writers, actors and musicians fleeing the “real world.” (Photos courtesy of Chris Robinson)

In fact, when Chris arrived in Key West in 1972, the 24-year-old from St. Augustine, Fla., found himself in a renegade seaport town. Politicos ran the government largely from the Chart Room Bar (where Chris captured a coveted bartending job), hobbyist pot smugglers were admired as romantic outlaws, and local treasure hunters drank rum with Pulitzer Prize–winning escapees from the literary mainstream.

Tall and spare, with long hair and a luxuriant moustache, Chris displays a storyteller’s wit, easygoing attitude and lively enjoyment of the absurd. During his early Key West years, those traits served him well in an offbeat venture begun with buddy Tommy Hicks.

“We opened the world-famous All-Breeds Hot Dog Pound on Greene Street,” said Chris. “Our motto was We Relish Your Buns.”

The business didn’t last long, but old-time Key Westers still wax nostalgic about the “pound’s” juicy hot dogs nestled in soft Cuban rolls.

At that time, Key West’s ramshackle charm and end-of-the-road atmosphere made it a magnet for writers, actors and musicians fleeing the “real world.” Among them were novelist and poet Jim Harrison, “Ninety-two in the Shade” author Tom McGuane and struggling singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who later memorialized the Key West lifestyle in song and earned enduring fame.

Chris (at left holding a freshly-caught permit) eventually became a Keys fishing guide.

“He was not a star then,” said Chris. “He used to sit with his little guitar and amp and play in the Chart Room.”

The two became friends when Buffett moved into the oceanfront apartment above Chris’s beside a bar and restaurant named Louie’s Backyard.

By 1986, Chris was tending bar at the Afterdeck at Louie’s, an open-air cocktail deck on the edge of the Atlantic, whose clientele combined local fishermen, upscale tourists and visiting celebrities. It was a position he would hold for 18 years.

Yet while he enjoyed the Keys’ partying pursuits, Chris also was drawn to life on the water. An angler since his childhood, he bought a boat shortly after arriving in Key West and learned flats fishing tips from Tom McGuane.

In action on the Florida Keys flats, Chris guides anglers to tarpon, bonefish, permit, barracuda and the occasional shark.

Eventually he got his captain’s license and began guiding. In 2004, he retired from Louie’s Backyard and began chartering full time on his 18-foot Action Craft, fishing the flats for tarpon, bonefish, permit, barracuda and the occasional shark. He called his business Big Kahuna Charters.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, Chris enjoys guiding novice anglers as much as he does seasoned pros.

Poling through the shallows, he also shares his love of the diverse and vibrant Keys environment with his clients — pointing out sea turtles, spotted eagle rays, stingrays and manatees.

“I tell people it’s an eco-tour with a chance to catch a fish,” said Chris.

It might be a long road from the bartending high life to the natural realm of the flats, but Chris Robinson has traveled it with grace — and few regrets.

Some years back, while guiding a Chicago office worker on a February fishing escape, he realized just how lucky he was.

“It was about 80 degrees, the water had three different colors and the sky was that big, high-pressure clear deep blue,” said Chris, “and he looks at me and he goes, ‘Nice office’.”

Topics: Big Pine Key & Lower Keys, Florida Keys, Highlights, Key West, Keys Environment, Local Color, On the Water, Profiles

Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? In Key West, nobody. And while Key West’s Wolf is certainly big, it’s only bad in the slang sense, where “bad” means seriously terrific.

The Schooner Wolf under full sail is a magnificent reminder of Key West's seafaring heritage. (Photo courtesy of the Schooner Wolf)

That’s because Key West’s “wolf” is the 74-foot gaff-rigged topsail Schooner Wolf, a majestic tall ship that’s been headquartered in the island city for some 25 years.

The flagship of the Keys’ Conch Republic, the Wolf is patterned after the 19th-century blockade runners that once plied the waters of the Florida Straits. The classic schooner has appeared in several movies, stars in Key West’s annual Pirates in Paradise festival, and is renowned for its humanitarian relief sails to needy Caribbean and Bahamian island communities.

But the Wolf is most notable for something else entirely: its owner and skipper, Captain Finbar Gittelman.

Captain Finbar Gittelman, a master seafarer with a roguish sense of humor, is the builder and skipper of the Wolf. (Photo by Rob O'Neal)

The epitome of an old salt, Captain Finbar bears a slightly unnerving resemblance to the wicked Barbossa in “Pirates of the Caribbean.” He has lived in Key West since the early 1970s and built his classic schooner in the early 1980s.

As admiral-in-chief of the Keys’ picturesque Conch Republic Navy, Finbar presides over the navy’s yearly sea battle with “federal invaders” — a highlight of the annual Conch Republic Independence Celebration. (By a strange coincidence, the navy ALWAYS wins). He’s also a legendary pirate king who, with his lady Julie McEnroe (a.k.a. Blossom), oversees Key West’s rollicking Pirates in Paradise festival.

However, there’s more to the captain than the personas he assumes with devil-may-care enthusiasm. In 1980 Finbar survived a deadly Caribbean hurricane at sea, spending three harrowing days in a tiny life raft after the ship he was piloting sank in the storm.

Shortly before the Wolf's departure for Haiti, volunteers load a portion of more than 10 tons of relief supplies destined for earthquake victims. (Photo by Rob O'Neal/Florida Keys News Bureau)

He has since sailed the Wolf on several missions of mercy after hurricanes and other natural disasters, carrying cargoes of relief supplies to desperate people in stricken Caribbean regions.

On Feb. 20, the Wolf departed Key West’s Historic Seaport for earthquake-ravaged Haiti, carrying more than 10 tons of food, water, medicine, tools and other supplies donated by Florida Keys residents and businesses.

Finbar and Julie expect the crossing to Haiti to take between five and seven days. Their final destination is a remote coastal area not accessible to larger relief ships, where members of the local fishing fleet will paddle their dugout canoes out to meet the schooner.

As the Wolf sets sail for Haiti Feb. 20, Finbar blows the conch horn in farewell while Julie waves goodbye to friends on the dock. (Photo by Rob O'Neal/Florida Keys News Bureau)

Not only will the Wolf bring these people lifesaving supplies — it also carries the good wishes of hundreds of Keys residents, and a part of the island chain’s vital spirit.

“People keep asking me why we’re doing this, and my answer is simple,” said Finbar. “We’re islanders, and we need to take care of our fellow islanders.”

So raise a glass in salute to the Wolf, to Finbar and Julie and the rest of the Haiti-bound crew. May they find fair winds and smooth seas, and a safe journey home.

Topics: Florida Keys, Highlights, Key West, Keys History, Local Color, On the Water, Profiles

Some people might dread a mundane workweek, ticking off the days on the calendar until their next vacation. But not Armando “Mandy” Rodriguez. The guiding spirit behind Marathon’s Dolphin Research Center, or DRC, Mandy calls his job a blessing and a gift — one that the Vietnam veteran says rescued him from deep post-war despair.

Mandy Rodriguez, the guiding spirit behind Dolphin Research Center, enjoys a quiet moment with a couple of good buddies. (Photos courtesy of DRC)

In 1984, Mandy and his then-wife Jayne Shannon-Rodriguez founded the nonprofit DRC after working as head trainer and manager of the research facility that previously existed on the property.

Now, more than 25 years later, both remain actively involved in DRC’s operation. Their underlying philosophies — to teach the world about marine mammals’ innate intelligence and problem-solving skills, as well as how to care for and protect them — are the principles that guide the facility.

With its protective environment for dolphins and sea lions, DRC draws national and international visitors to the Florida Keys. It’s also a center where people can increase their awareness of marine mammals and environmental conservation.

In addition, DRC is a great place to learn and work for young people pursuing careers in research and animal behaviors.

Under Mandy's watchful eye, dolphins Kibby, AJ and Tanner have some fun taking turns on a training platform.

Mandy’s connection to marine mammals, however, predates DRC. It began during his childhood in Cuba.

“I was taught to swim before I could walk, exposed to mammals at an early age,” said Mandy, who arrived in the United States at age 10. “I was an ocean brat.”

When he was 20, after fighting in the Vietnam War, Mandy worked at the Miami Seaquarium as “low man on the assistant trainer totem pole.” The experience left him unfulfilled and in search of a teaching institution.

He found it at the New England Aquarium in Boston, where he trained with harbor seals, sea lions and fur seals. Yet it was interaction with dolphins that ultimately captured his attention and became his passion.

A trio of "mellow fellows" share a swim in DRC's protected waters. The center has performed groundbreaking research on dolphin intelligence.

Mandy’s war experiences had left him edgy and suffering from persistent post-traumatic stress disorder. He credits the dolphins — their energy, behavioral responses, ability to evoke emotions and calm the soul — with helping him coexist better with fellow humans, including those who had harassed and persecuted him when he returned from Vietnam.

“The dolphins taught me to live life, accept life and to be … a mellow fellow,” said Mandy.

Now that he has spent decades with the gentle cetaceans, he admits to having a few favorites: Kibby, a resident of DRC for nearly 30 years, 21-year-old A.J. and his 7-year-old son Tanner, whose cognitive abilities earned him a brainiac reputation as the “jock who’s smart.”

The “four boys” like to play and romp together, with the dolphins gathering around for the kisses that Mandy generously doles out — all while maintaining an eye contact that demonstrates the trust between them.

“They taught me to have fun in life, to eat, play and make love,” said Mandy of the dolphins. “Anyone that goes wrong with that is nuts.”

Topics: Animal Ambassadors, Highlights, Keys Environment, Marathon, Profiles

This might be her 31st year in the scuba diving business, but Amy Slate has not lost an ounce of her enthusiasm for diving, ocean preservation or the Key Largo community she’s called home since the 1970s. Owner and operator of Amy Slate’s Amoray Dive Resort, she’s living a dream of being connected to marine life that began when she was a child growing up in Miami.

Amy Slate, today the owner of Amoray Dive Resort, discovered her passion for the world beneath the sea at an early age. (Photo by Frazier Nivens)

At age 6, a swim with the dolphins at Key West’s Flipper Sea School launched Amy’s passion. Afterward, convinced she would spend her life in, on and around the ocean, she excitedly told her parents, “This is it!”

Years later, as a teacher in rural Jacksonville, Fla., Amy taught sixth-grade students lessons in all subjects with teaching tools derived from the ocean. Utilizing seashells, students learned how to take measurements, use multiplication and explore scientific origins by reading about shells and marine life.

Amy also conducted dive training classes at the YMCA. Yet the tug of her South Florida roots (coupled with morning frost on the car windows), were enough to make her decide, along with then-husband Spencer, to head for the Keys in 1978. There they started a dive business named Atlantis Dive Center.

Amy Slate shares her Upper Keys life with Labrador retrievers Mia and Tia. (Photo by Peter Lorber)

In 1992, Amy dissolved her personal and professional partnerships to branch out on her own with brother Justin. After years spent studying other dive resorts — “research” that involved diving with humpback whales in French Polynesia and on the reefs of Bonaire, Cozumel and the Caribbean — Amy opened Amy Slate’s Amoray Dive Resort.

The property, and its name, were born from Amy’s deep love for the ocean and a play on her Italian family roots in the province of Sant’ Agata di Puglia. After every dive trip, the Amoray boat crew plays “That’s Amore!” on the return to the dock, and the resort’s signature logo is a moray eel in the shape of a heart.

The resort reflects Amy’s love of the Keys environment. All rooms are named after reef fish and brightly decorated with Caribbean-style colors, tropical linens, furnishings and wall hangings.

Amy still dives at least two afternoons a week along the reefs and wrecks of Key Largo. (Photo by Frazier Nivens)

Over the years, Amy and Amoray have earned a reputation for excelling at underwater weddings. Amoray Dive Resort ceremonies have been featured in “People” magazine and on a television show hosted by Geraldo Rivera — who even blew a conch shell on-camera for his audience.

Amy’s activities, however, aren’t limited to operating the resort. She has focused on fundraisers for local dolphin care centers and shelters for women and children, has served on the board of the Reef Environmental Education Foundation, and is active in furthering coral restoration and transplantation projects with a local marine scientist.

Despite her wide-ranging travels, she believes the Florida Keys are still the best place to dive. In fact, she dives the Upper Keys’ Molasses Reef at least two afternoons a week to relax.

“Not everyone can live their passion,” Amy says. “But if you do what you love, the rest will follow.”

Topics: Florida Keys, Highlights, Key Largo, Keys Environment, On the Water, Profiles

Maybe because of Key West’s quirky, renegade nature, it seems particularly suited to be the setting for contemporary mystery books. Today, there’s an entertaining crop of them, written by people who know the island well enough to portray it ruefully, humorously, lovingly and so accurately that readers can almost feel the humidity and smell the salt air.

John Leslie's Key West mystery series stars the enigmatic Gideon Lowry.

For example, check out the books of longtime Keys resident John Leslie, featuring Key West private investigator and piano player Gideon Lowry.

Shipwreck salvagers, Hemingway aficionados, greedy developers and celebrity tourists are just a few of the characters that enliven Gideon’s days. Melancholy rhythms and romantic misfortunes permeate his life — as does too much violence. His exploits are chronicled in books including “Night and Day” and “Killing Me Softly.”

Sadly, Gideon’s adventures are no longer widely available in major bookstores … but they can be found easily at www.amazon.com.

Tom Corcoran’s Key West mystery series debuted in 1998 with “The Mango Opera.” It continues in several other volumes, including the recent “Hawk Channel Chase,” detailing the adventures of freelance photographer Alex Rutledge.

Authors Michael Haskins (left) and Tom Corcoran are captured on camera at Key West Island Books, a popular literary hotspot on the island.

A Key West resident in the late 1970s, Corcoran was a photographer, disc jockey and close friend of the island’s renowned “pirate laureate,” singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett — and his books draw on his memories of that era as well as the southernmost city’s contemporary feel.

Read excerpts from Corcoran’s tales, and purchase his books, at www.tomcorcoran.net.

The latest talented entrant into the Key West mystery realm is Michael Haskins, whose background includes television work in Los Angeles and stints as a freelance press photographer and journalist.

Haskins’ first crime thriller “Chasin’ the Wind,” starring journalist Liam Michael “Mad Mick” Murphy, was published in March 2008. It’s a spicy conch chowder flavored with dashes of small-town politics, Cuban intrigue, neurotic federales and island attitude.

An avid reader as well as an author, Michael Haskins writes in a home study surrounded by good books and family photographs. (Photo by Paul Clarin)

Haskins, who settled in Key West in the early 1990s, had his first island-city crime story published in the prestigious “Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.” When he conceived Mick Murphy, he made Key West a vital character in Mick’s story — using authentic street names, pub names and local reference points.

When he crafted the book, Haskins made Mick a likeable and reality-based character that readers might enjoy meeting for a casual drink or two.

In a nod to friend and mentor Tom Corcoran, Haskins even depicted Murphy reading one of Corcoran’s Alex Rutledge books, creating a situation that could only happen in a novel — the protagonist of a mystery based in Key West reading a mystery based in Key West.

Shown here at a book signing, Michael Haskins drew on his years in Key West to flavor the crime thriller "Chasin' the Wind," set in the quirky and charismatic island city. (Photo by Paul Clarin)

Clearly, the island has earned an enduring place in the world of mystery writers (and readers!). Its accepting lifestyle and undemanding pace seemingly leave plenty of room for the creative consciousness to roam.

“If you come here to write or paint or be a photographer and you let yourself do what you want, then you’re going to do well down here,” said Haskins. “Key West — the island, the city, the atmosphere — is a muse.”

Haskins has completed a second Mick Murphy novel and is at work on his third. To read their initial chapters, and get purchase info for “Chasin’ the Wind,” visit www.michaelhaskins.net.

Topics: Arts, Florida Keys, Key West, Local Color, Profiles

When Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West in the 1930s, sparring and refereeing boxing matches were among his favorite pastimes. Until February 2000, Key West was home to one of the last living links to the author: Kermit “Shine” Forbes, his one-time sparring partner.

In this 1994 photo Shine, right, puts on the gloves with Hemingway Look-Alike Contest winner Bill Fountain. (Photo by Andy Newman, Florida Keys News Bureau)

Shine, as he was called by practically everyone who knew him, was a compact man whose body never lost the strength developed during his early physical training. Born in 1916, he was at one time an oyster harvester, a dishwasher and a fisherman. For many years, he was a cook at Key West’s Naval Hospital.

When he first met Ernest Hemingway, Shine was working with a fighter named Alfred “Black Pie” Colebrooks during a match at the Key West Arena, located in the Bahama Village neighborhood. Though the opposing fighter repeatedly drove Black Pie to the canvas, he rose and battled on — until Shine finally threw in the towel, signaling that they conceded the fight.

Author Lorian Hemingway shared her grandfather Ernest's affection for Shine, as is clearly visible in this snapshot from years ago. (Photo by Michael Whalton)

The referee, a shabbily-dressed man much bigger than Shine, threw the towel back. Shine threw it back in, only to have the referee throw it out again. After this happened a third time — and the towel hit Shine in the face — he jumped into the ring and took a punch at the ref, though it didn’t connect.

“I didn’t know who he was,” reported Shine during an interview in the late 1990s.

Later, his manager told him the man he’d tried to punch was the famous writer Ernest Hemingway.

“I went over to his house that night to apologize,” Shine said. “Hemingway shook my hand and asked me to come over the next day — and that’s when we began sparring.”

The young Shine, and his comrades among the local fighters, sparred regularly with Hemingway around the swimming pool at the author’s Whitehead Street home. According to Shine, Hemingway was considerate of his opponents during those rounds.

“He took it easy on us,” he recalled, “because he had the weight. He was a big man.”

Each year until his death, Shine was a VIP guest at Key West's Hemingway Days celebrations. (Photo by Tom Netting)

One Christmas during a party at his house, the author had Shine and the other fighters put on a boxing exhibition. Among the guests was boxing great Gene Tunney. Hemingway passed the hat after the exhibition, and the Key West fighters ended up with a substantial Christmas “present.”

Until his death at 84, decades after he last sparred with Hemingway, Shine Forbes lived in a small Bahama Village home whose walls bore hundreds of photos and clippings about the author, his descendants, and Key West’s annual Hemingway Days. Shine often took part in the festival — and, on occasion, even put on the gloves and boxed with “Papa” Hemingway Look-Alike contenders.

He was also periodically sought out by journalists asking about his connection with Hemingway.

“I got kind of famous on account of him,” Shine said of the author. “If I never knew him, I would be just Shine around here.”

Shine's infectious grin and unquenchable spirit explain where his nickname came from. Here, he spars playfully with a man who looks oddly familiar. (Photo by Tom Netting)

It would have been easy for Shine to exaggerate his friendship with Hemingway or his knowledge of the author. After all, few people could contradict any story he chose to tell. But he never did.

Instead, with the integrity Hemingway admired so many years ago, he stuck to what he knew: Ernest Hemingway the boxing aficionado, the man who didn’t put on airs but respected the skills of neighborhood fighters.

Maybe that’s one reason Shine, who never regarded himself as anyone special, is now an unforgettable part of Key West’s rich history — just like the “referee” who became his friend. 

Topics: Florida Keys, Highlights, Key West, Keys History, Local Color, Profiles

He peddled tacos from a three-wheeled bicycle when he first moved to Key West — and Tom Corcoran has never forgotten the irreverent, weird, magical island he discovered from that vantage point.

Author Tom Corcoran

It’s that island that he portrays so faithfully in his series of mystery novels: “The Mango Opera,” “Gumbo Limbo,” “Bone Island Mambo,” “Octopus Alibi,” “Air Dance Iguana” and the brand-new “Hawk Channel Chase.” Countless readers have become fascinated by Corcoran’s Key West, walking the island’s streets with his protagonist Alex Rutledge.

Alex’s creator first saw Key West as a Navy lieutenant when he was sent down for an eight-week training course. As he puts it, he “somehow slipped into island mode without an instruction book.”

Returning after his discharge, he was quickly adopted by Key West’s renegade literati — among them legendary poet/novelist Jim Harrison and author Tom McGuane.

“My first job was selling tacos from a three-wheeled bicycle, three for a dollar,” said Corcoran. “I used to go around to John Brown’s Bar and Tennessee Williams would buy rounds of tacos for his entourage, as long as anybody would eat them.”

Later, Corcoran began a friendship with singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett, whose Key West experiences inspired his best-known songs. Corcoran shot cover photos for some classic Buffett albums, and the friendship has endured for more than 30 years.

Besides his mystery series, Corcoran is also well-known for his photo collection depicting his friend Jimmy Buffett's Key West years.

“I learned a lot from being around Jimmy — he was a natural businessman as well as an entertainer,” Corcoran said. “Between the lessons to be learned just watching him work and the encouragement he’s given me, it’s been a great relationship.”

Although he had imagined becoming an author in his teens, in Key West Corcoran sampled careers including bartender, disc jockey, and photographer. A well as Buffett’s album covers, his photography adorns book covers for such well-known writers as McGuane, James W. Hall, and Les Standiford.

Eventually, Corcoran moved to Alabama and edited a magazine called “Mustang Monthly.” Yet he couldn’t get Key West, or the desire to write books, out of his mind. In the 1990s the two melded into his first published mystery, “The Mango Opera.”

“’The Mango Opera’ reconnects my heart and brain to Key West,” wrote Buffett at the time of the book’s 1998 release.

Corcoran set the book in the island city not just because he knew its people and places so well, but because he thought it wasn’t being depicted fully and fairly.

“Other than James Hall’s and John Leslie’s, there just weren’t enough good books about a place that deserved better,” said Corcoran. “I wanted to tell stories that hadn’t been told, and I wanted to help the world get close to the island’s soul.”

Corcoran’s Key West has a strong, elemental appeal. He portrays the steamy, raffish, independent island with a wry affection and a bone-deep authenticity that leaves readers practically able to smell the seaweed on the beach.

Corcoran is known for intriguing titles as well as intriguing tales.

His lead character, Alex Rutledge, shares his love for Key West and his talent for photography — a talent that propels Alex into the midst of mystery with great regularity.

“I didn’t know enough about police work or being a private eye to make Alex a policemen or a detective, but I wanted to have him have some ties to the law enforcement community,” Corcoran explained. “So, since photography had been my profession, I decided Alex would be a freelance photographer who would do the city and county forensic work.”

In “Hawk Channel Chase,” Alex encounters a real estate broker with a missing daughter, an inexplicably off-limits crime scene and an old friend with secretive new habits.

Readers who know Key West will recognize its streets, bars, landmarks and lifestyle in the book — just as Corcoran intended. Though he now lives elsewhere, he visits Key West frequently for inspiration, relaxation and periodic book signings.

“At a book signing at the Blue Heron, a young man who was in line to get his book signed said to me, ‘I’m a Conch and I grew up on this island, and you got it right’,” recalled Corcoran. “That’s one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received.”

Want to know more about Tom Corcoran and his Alex Rutledge books? Visit www.tomcorcoran.net.

Topics: Arts, Florida Keys, Highlights, Key West, Local Color, Profiles

Harriet Stokes, only the third owner of Largo Lodge since it opened in Key Largo in the late 1940s, remembers the sleepy years of the Florida Keys.

“I bought Largo Lodge between 1967 and 1968,” Stokes said. “The road Largo Lodge is on was a narrow road back then. We could sit right in the middle of it, read the paper and not be bothered by cars or people.”

Stokes

Although the Florida Keys are much more populated now, maintaining the destination’s laid-back atmosphere is important to Stokes and is something she strives for at her property.

It was originally conceived as a small casino, so the first owner built cottages to house the gamblers. Many casino visitors were troops from Florida training camps, readying for World War II, who needed a release from their military duties.

“The troops trained in Florida because of the year-round good weather, so the owner figured with a card table and some cards they could get a game going,” Stokes said.

Stokes has a wealth of memories of her history in Key Largo — including the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce meetings the group held in her back yard.

“That’s how we started. We put a trailer near the road and we used that as our first chamber office,” Stokes said. “We had an agreement with the land owner that, if we fed her cat, she would allow us to use the property the trailer was on as our visitor center.”

She also recalled the regular blackouts that occurred in the late 1960s because of area thunderstorms — especially one in 1968.

“The editor of ‘The Atlanta Journal Constitution’ and Charles Portis, who wrote ‘True Grit,’ the novel that became a John Wayne classic, were guests at the lodge then and I remember them staying up all night during the blackout, shining their headlights in my garden,” commented Stokes.

Many local politicians also stayed at Largo Lodge including Harry Harris and Senator Larry Plumber when they needed a quiet place to relax.

While Stokes prides herself on keeping the Old Florida feel at Largo Lodge, which comprises seven units housed on the property’s three acres of land, she said maintaining that look gets tougher by the day.

“Because of the décor in our rooms, I often have to shop on Miami Beach to find the Art Deco look that works,” she said.

The property still uses pea rock for its driveway, which she feels enhances the atmosphere, and they continue to plant trees to keep the lodge quiet.

“Our driveway is very beautiful and we make the landscaping this way to keep the noise level down,” Stokes explained.

A Midwesterner who married a South Floridian back in the late 1940s, Stokes has seen a world of changes since her first days in the Keys.

“I don’t think people realize how primitive it was back then, particularly the openness and the electricity going out,” she said. “Where we are now is a long way from the 1957 Chevy that brought me here.”

Topics: Florida Keys, Highlights, Key Largo, Keys History, Local Color, Profiles

He may be more than 60 years old, but Will Soto still walks a tightrope three evenings a week, juggling and bantering with crowds as the undisputed star of Key West’s famed sunset celebration at Mallory Square.

In fact Soto, who has the lean physique and quick enthusiasm of a much younger man, is one of the founders of the nightly celebration that draws scores of people to Mallory to watch buskers perform, browse vendors’ wares and applaud the sunset over Key West Harbor.

But just as the sunset gathering wasn’t always such a widely recognized spectacle, Soto wasn’t always an acrobat. He was a New Orleans–based artist, traveling the show circuit, when he was hijacked by a friend after a Coconut Grove art festival (and a few cocktails) and transported to Key West.

“I woke up in the back of his van crossing bridges,” Soto confesses.

He had seen Key West once before, in 1966, when his Navy destroyer escort briefly visited the port. But the second time, 10 years later, the island’s appeal took hold during his first early-morning walk.

“In those days, nothing was really rehabbed,” he recalls. “The houses were all funky and in a state of glorious disrepair. I said, ‘Wow, this is my place — where I want to be for a while.’ I just had some magical feeling about it.”

Almost immediately, Soto discovered Mallory Square and its nightly sunset celebration. At that time, it was simply an eclectic gathering of locals — a handful of artists selling trinkets, fishermen returning from a day on the water, hippies, a few musicians, a lone performing act and whoever else happened to wander by. Once the sun went down, the action began.

“Two or three or four drummers came together, and somebody would bring their guitar or a flute,” Soto says. “People started playing music, doing the limbo and partying, passing around wine and rum. There was a palpable magic in the air — it was the kind of wild, unabashed tropical party that you always wished you could stumble upon.”

The artist from New Orleans was hooked. And shortly, his new home inspired a new profession.

Soto already had a background in gymnastics and an ability to juggle. Tempted by the wide open stage of Mallory Square, he abandoned the visual arts for the performing arts.

“That exchange with the audience … felt so good and so right,” he says of his first attempts at performing. “Everything was so immediate and so magical that it said something to my soul that I needed.”

Fueled by the response from his small audience, Soto learned how to work a crowd. He took his juggling and comic patter to new heights when he ascended a tightrope high above the audience.

As the years passed and Key West’s tourism industry grew, the sunset celebration became a must-see event for virtually every visitor to the island city. Soto helped nurture its development into the internationally recognized “happening” it is today — and his photographed silhouette, standing on the high wire against a blazing sky and the waters of Key West Harbor, became an iconic symbol of the nightly gathering.

More than 30 years after his arrival in Key West, Soto’s trademark ponytail and mustache might be graying, but his body is as trim and limber as ever. His performances still sparkle, though he never imagined he’d be working the wire at his age.

“In fact, I would have told you that a 60-year-old acrobat probably wasn’t a possibility,” he admits. “The only reason my body can still handle what I’m doing is because I work out five days a week. I’m up early and I do kickboxing, tai chi, tae kwon do …”

As well as teaching martial arts, he maintains his physical strength by kayaking with his wife Amy.

Equally strong is his continued passion for Key West.

“There are always a million little things in Key West that are funky and you love,” he says. “Like coconuts falling in your yard that you can pick up and eat, or walking out your door and seeing a three-and-a-half-foot white heron standing in your front yard.”

After three decades of performing for sunset audiences, Will Soto is just as enthusiastic about it as he was when he attempted his first shows.

“I have never lost that love of that spontaneous magic you can create when you’re working with a live crowd,” he states.

For the innumerable people who applaud him at the sunset celebration, that’s very good news.

Topics: Events, Festivals, Florida Keys, Highlights, Key West, Keys Quirks, Local Color, Profiles

Islamorada artist Stacie Krupa, a native Floridian, did her time in the Northeast before discovering the lifestyle in the Keys suits her — and her art — far better.

“I am very inspired by wildlife, ocean and fish,” says Krupa, who has made her home in the Keys for 10 years. “I painted fish when I was in the Northeast, and people thought I was weird.”

Originally from Orlando, Krupa studied art in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York before opening a gallery in Winter Park, Fla. In 1997, she decided to move to the Florida Keys.

“I came here because if you’re going to live in Florida, you should live in the Keys,” she says. “Moving here also gave me the opportunity to bring the mentality and the essence of fine art from the Northeast to the Keys.”

When she first arrived in the Keys, Krupa used a limited palette of colors — gray, white and brown — which gave her work an industrial feel. Once she embarked on earning her masters degree, which she completed in the Keys, she became interested in creating abstract expressionist images.

“I noticed the Keys artists’ use of color and figured out in graduate school I wanted to do this with acrylics,” she says. “Rather than just seeing the image and its shapes, I started seeing the colors around me.”

Krupa, whose background includes a degree in psychology, knows well the effect color can have on a person’s life. She credits the colors in the Florida Keys with determining her moods. The island environment, coupled with the colors, she says, provides a source of self-therapy for her.

“As a very energetic and hyper person, the intensity of the natural beauty here serves both to soothe and inspire me,” Krupa states.

Krupa’s art, showcased at her gallery at mile marker (MM) 83 oceanside in Islamorada, depicts ocean life as well as animals and people, and incorporates iridescent colors layered with drips and sparkles. She works in oils, oil sticks and acrylics.

Krupa encourages visitors to the gallery to come in, ponder and converse about the pieces, and watch her as she works.

Her art, influenced by the abstract expressionist movement of the 1930s and 1940s, can also be seen at the new Redbone Gallery, MM 81 oceanside behind the Green Turtle Inn Restaurant.

Although Krupa likes to venture to the Florida mainland, after a short time away she longs to come home to her familiar surroundings.

As strong as her passion for the Keys is, however, it can’t eclipse her passion for art. She first explored painting when she was 3 years old, and began painting professionally at age 12.

Art has served as a major confidence builder and a constant in her life, something she could rely on, yet change if she felt the need to.

“In other words, I could never mess it up,” Krupa says. “Where people and life disappoint, my art has never disappointed me, and this has always driven me to paint.”

In fact, art is so important to Krupa that her paintings become like human beings to her.

“Sometimes I yell at my paintings,” she confesses. “I speak to them as if they were alive — and they are always a male or female when I am done, almost as if they were a sibling.”

Siblings or not, the paintings of this creative Keys “sister” are well worth discovering.

Topics: Animal Ambassadors, Arts, Florida Keys, Highlights, Islamorada, Keys Environment, Profiles