Stiltsville - A Village on Stilts

Stiltsville is an interesting village of six houses built on stilts of wood or concrete pilings buried in the shallow grass beds of Biscayne Bay, a mile south of Key Biscayne. In its prime in the 1950’s and 60’s, it consisted of 27 buildings, from simple houses to sprawling social clubs. But out in the open as they were, they suffered the exposure to extremes of weather, such as major storms, especially hurricanes. Fourteen buildings were left when Hurricane Andrew, a cat 5, destroyed all but seven buildings in 1992. One more house burned to the waterline in 2021, leaving the six se see today.
A man by the name of “Crawfish Eddie” Walker is attributed with building the first Stiltsville structure in 1932 or 33. He built a bait-and-tackle shop on top of a barge fir fishermen going in and out of Key Biscayne. He also served food and beer and gambling was probably included.
Most of the buildings were on either side of the Biscayne Channel, a major east-to-west cut linking the Atlantic Ocean with Miami through Biscayne Bay.
Henry Flagler dredged the Biscayne Channel so his steamboat fleet could travel from Miami to the Bahamas, Havana, and Key West.
The many parallel east-to-west channels south of Biscayne Channel are called “finger” channels. These cut across miles of sand and coral flats. People built houses half over the shallow flats and half over the deeper channels, allowing access by boat.
In 1938, the first social club, the Calvert Club, as added to the existing houses and shacks. It was small, with a bar and lounge
It became a major tourist attraction and was so popular that postcards were printed with a picture of the club on them. It was where the social elite of Miami gathered.
Two years later, a second club, the sprawling Quarterdeck Club, was added. It was a private gentlemen’s club with a membership of $150 but only by invitation.
It featured a bar, dining room, lounge, and bridge deck as well as docks for boats. It had its own electricity, heating, and refrigeration. Plus, it had an attached building with private “couples cubicles.”
By 1945, Stiltsville consisted of 12 houses and 2 clubs. It grew to 24 houses by 1962 when the Bikini Club was built. Instead of building on a barge, the 150-foot yacht “Jeff” was grounded and docks were added.
It was a private club with over 1300 members that featured gambling, drinking, beautiful women, a sundeck for nude sunbathing as well as staterooms that could be rented. Women who wore bikinis were given free drinks.
The Bikini Club, however, had a short history. Built in 1962, raided in 1965 by the Florida Beverage Commission and closed down for lack of a liquor license, and then burned to the waterline in 1966.
Besides hurricanes threatening Stiltsville, the owners needed to worry about the state of Florida and the National Park Service taking away their homes. In the 1970’s, Stiltsville homeowners were given leases by the state that expired in 1999. Then, in 1985, the bottom land on which the Stiltsville houses sit became part of Biscayne National Park.
This forced the homeowners there to leave because their homes became public land and the Park Service does not allow private use of public lands. The Park Service, however, honored the leases but did not have the authority to renew them.
Citizens and owners formed an organization called SOS, Save Old Stiltsville, and campaigned to keep the structures. Eventually, they formed the Stiltsville Trust and made an agreement with the Park Service to save the buildings and to designate caretakers, usually the previous owners and friends, to maintain the buildings and to make necessary repairs.
Public access to the houses is permitted, but only with a permit through the Stiltsville Trust. The permits for individual and family usage, outside of the caretakers, seem reasonable: $50 per person, a damage deposit, and $40 per hour for a chaperon, called a house engineer. For corporate usage, the fee is a minimum of $1000.
Typical usage includes weddings, memorial services, various group get togethers, athletic events, snorkeling and SCUBA diving, as well as scientific and social research.


Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:11 Location and Brief History
02:10 Origins
03:00 A-Frame House
03:55 Baldwin-Sessions House
05:07 Ellenburg House
05:45 Bay Chateau
06:50 Finger Channels
09:00 Instructions for a Foundation for a Stiltsville House
09:50 Calvert Club
10:33 Quarterdeck Club
11:30 Bikini Club
12:50 Miami Springs Powerboat Club
14:35 Ending


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Attribution for wiki image Stiltsville from FL light
Mr3641, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Stiltsville National Parks Service image by Matt Johnson

Interior of Bay Chateau by Glenn Terry https://thegroveguy.blogspot.com/2011...

Bikini Club image: www.stiltsville.org
Quarterdeck Club image: Miami Springs Historical Society, Facebook, September 7, 2021.