Tiki History - Sunset Inn, Florida Keys

This card for the Sunset Inn, on Islamorada in the Flroida Keys, is dated November 29, 1968. My guess is that this guest stayed there over the Thanksgiving holiday.

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[ Edited by: ZuluMagoo 2006-12-31 09:31 ]

In the alternate universe where I own a huge tiki bar, only vintage cars are allowed to park in front of the building!

Nice card.

On 2004-08-27 23:54, TikiGardener wrote:
In the alternate universe where I own a huge tiki bar, only vintage cars are allowed to park in front of the building!

1959 Chevys preferred of course!

Found their webpage- http://www.sunsetinnkeys.com/

We'll have to take some pictures of what's left post Hukilau.

Well, as promised I've brought back a few pictures of what was once another unique Route 1 Tiki Treasure. Unfortunately, while the buildings still stand, Evidence of Tikiness was lacking.

Doubly bad is the fact that the exposure on our camera was screwed for most of the pix we took.

You can find all of the pix, in the Album here- http://www.sevenpleasures.org/gallery/Islamorada

I gave it this description-

"Once upon a time, in the 50's that is, it's clear, Islamorada had a real Tiki vibe going. The Sunset Inn (alongside the very 50's but probably never Tiki, La Jolla), The Islander Resort, The Kon-Tiki resort, the Kona-Kai and even the Holiday Isle Tiki bar- where the rumrunner was created, all were part of an island community hinting at the Pacific not the Atlantic. What remains now seems shards without coherence. You will however, still find http://www.tikicompany.com/ carving and selling their Tikis along route 1 and plenty of cinderblock 50's leftovers waiting to be discovered."

Sabu says the Islander brochures didn't show much Tikiness even back in the day- just the fantastic sign- which still remains and a few pictures are included in the Album.

As I said, you can still find Tiki carvers in Islamorada, and the whole area is probably well worth a better expedition, but be prepared to do some real digging and some interviewing.

Going Southbound on route 1, on the right hand side the first thing you see is the spectacular sign- huge for the Keys- really lit at night.

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Here's the one picture we have the shows most of the building all in one frame-

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The hotel is mainly to the left of the frame, and very pink cinderblock with blue trim.

and here's kind of a close up of the place where the A-frame roof and round roof used to be-

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It's very washed out (photography-wise), but you get the idea.

As I said, I've got a couple more on the gallery page, take a look.

[ Edited by: Sabina on 2005-01-21 01:37 ]

[ Edited by: Sabina on 2005-01-21 01:38 ]

Sabina,
Nice work and great postcard. Thanks for sharing this.
KG

Mangrove Mike's??? Mangrove MIKE'S!!!! Man, gotta cash my paycheck, grab my brass knucks, pick up my best girl and head off to Mangrove Mike's!!!!

i'm going to be driving down though the keys in a couple weeks ,i'll check it out and mangrove mikes TD

I'm a big fan of these before and after photos - nothing else shows what we have lost with such clarity... Thanks for sharing!

Bump - broken picture links repaired.