How Low You Can Go By Jerry Haines Special to The Washington Post Sunday, February 20, 2000

In Key West, a pylon marks the southernmost point in the continental United States. Photo by Jeff Greenberg

But you know only that you desperately need to be warm, that your soul craves sun, sand and an overpriced pina colada. And you need all that on an island-size piece of real estate. Maybe something closer to home-like, say, Florida . . . Hey, could Key West, one of our own little islands, be a substitute for a Windward or a Leeward? Yes! And, equally emphatically, no!

Key West is the southernmost point in the continental United States. (They didn't have to qualify it with "continental" until Hawaii came along and messed things up.) There is a local industry in being "southernmost"-Southernmost Motel, Southernmost Guest House. Indeed, the local phone book shows 37 listings beginning with southernmost, including Southernmost Hockey Club, Southernmost Seventh Day Adventist Church, Southernmost Falafel and Southernmost Podiatry. (No Southernmost Proctology, though.)

It was a different industry, however, that made Key West so rich that in the mid-1800s it had the highest per capita income in the country. Ships frequently ran aground on the reefs around the island, and (after the people aboard were properly rescued, one hopes) there were lots of goodies in the waterlogged cargoes to be reclaimed. The local "wreckers" prospered-that is, until an unfortunate trend of nautical safety started. You can still see the effects of all that wrecker money among the elegant homes in the island's Old Town.

Tourism is the principal industry now, but its start was a little rocky. In 1912 Henry Flagler, an associate of John D. Rockefeller, completed a railroad from mainland Florida, down the chain of keys, to Key West. A 1935 hurricane wiped out the rails, which were never replaced. In the meantime, however, the area had developed a reputation as an interesting place to hang out. Probably the most notorious hanger-outer was Ernest Hemingway, who used this island base to pursue two sports still popular there today: fishing and drinking. Even if you don't visit his home or the converted hay loft where he wrote "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," for example, you can't miss Hemingway on Key West. His name has been attached to every business that isn't called southernmost. One would not be surprised to see a Papa Hemingway's One-Hour Martinizing-Fresh Key Lime Pie.

Though the railroad is gone, the island remains eminently accessible, compared with many Caribbean destinations. It requires no transfer at San Juan to a puddle-jumper airline that seems to be run as a Junior Achievement project by a local high school. Starting in Maine, U.S. Highway 1 passes through Beltsville, Md., Woodbridge. Va., and Miami, connects the Keys to the mainland at Florida City via a series of bridges and terminates at the corner of Key West's Whitehead and Southard streets. By air, it's a 2½-hour flight from Washington to Miami, followed by a 50-minute hop to Key West's little airport. The island also is a cruise ship port. It's only a five-minute walk from the docks to Sloppy Joe's Bar, which is Party Hearty Central for the island.

Accessibility is easy, and so is commerce. And that sometimes is the problem. You'll find high-intensity commercialism at Mallory Square and North Duval Street, whose collection of bars, raunchy T-shirt shops and tacky tourist traps may best be summarized as Ocean City without the charm. But walk south down Duval and you'll notice that the garish gives way to the whimsical, or even the elegant. And, if you walk the complete 16-block length of Duval, you can say that you've walked from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic.

Off Duval, one may find various contenders for the title of "The Real Key West," ranging from the gingerbread-mansion neighborhoods of the rich and departed to the gritty homesteads of Bahama-town. Here and there are "eyebrow" houses, whose eaves slope way down to keep the sun out of the upper-floor bedrooms.

But you are affirmatively seeking the sun. So, if your main goal is to get warm, Key West performs that function as well as any place. The average high from January to April is 77 degrees, only seven degrees lower than the comparable figure for San Juan. There's a beach but not much of a beach scene, though. And while underwater sports are available, they're not as available as in the Caribbean. Divers and snorkelers will have to hire a boat rather than just jump off the hotel pier. The geology is a little different, too. While most Caribbean islands are really the tips of underwater mountains, the Keys are low-riding patches of limestone and coral-little parcels of Florida realty that wake up each morning asking, "Do I want to be land or water today?"

Like the Caribbean, however, Key West is aware of its history, both ancient and recent. Tour guides will gladly regale you with stories of the island's illustrious high rollers. Some of them might even be true. And they'll tell you about the tense days during the Cuban missile crisis. (Key West is closer to Havana than to Miami.) Civil War history is manifest locally at Fort Zachary Taylor, America's southernmost (that word again) fort, which was nonetheless a Union outpost. Long neglected, it is slowly being restored. Many of the old cannons have been unearthed in virtually mint condition.

For more recent history, check out the Little White House on the old Navy base. Harry Truman, that dapper civil servant from Missouri, liked to visit the island during his presidential years. You can see his quarters and imagine yourself trying to bluff him at the elegant poker table Navy carpenters built for him. (It was covered and used as a tea table when his wife, Bess, entertained.)

As in the Caribbean, life in Key West is casual. The waiters at the classiest restaurant in town, Louie's Backyard, likely would spill the Chardonnay if someone showed up in coat and tie. The "back yard" is actually the Atlantic, and you may enjoy your exquisite duck or mahi-mahi entree while watching dusk approach and the running lights begin to twinkle on the shrimp boats off the beach. Popular places to watch the sunset are Mallory Square and the rooftop bar at La Concha Hotel. As in the Caribbean, the sun seems to rush downward for those last few degrees above the horizon, as if it has just discovered that it's behind schedule.

Then for the party people it's off to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville or to Sloppy Joe's. Sloppy Joe's has moved since Hemingway's days and now is almost a theme park. You can taste the sloppy joe sandwich, later made famous at Cub Scout suppers and church choir fund-raisers. (And you'll discover that your den mother's version was better.) Around the corner is the bar's original, more authentic home, now called Captain Tony's. If you go in there, however, I warn you that, somehow, your mom will know, and she will worry.

Our favorite afternoon in Key West was spent in a local outdoor restaurant, Blue Heaven, which gives new meaning to the word "eclectic." On a small stage at one end, a guy pumped Eastern European melodies out of a concertina; at the other end, little girls played on a rope swing. A resident rooster crowed loudly at the stage, then, his protest ignored, resignedly settled back into the underbrush. Meanwhile, hens and pullets socialized under our table, waiting for me to throw them some more sesame seeds. (And what kind of sandwich was I eating? Let's just say I hope it wasn't a relative.) There was a sign on the fence reading, "Showers $1.00; to watch $2.00." Key West cognoscenti say Blue Heaven comes close to capturing the feel of the "old" Key West.

One lure of a Caribbean vacation is the sense that you're really getting away, to a foreign country. Key West claims to be its own country, too-the Conch Republic. You'll run into the word "conch" (pronounced "konk") a lot. Conch-eating Bahamians moved to Key West, bringing along their cuisine and sense of defiance, and now Key West natives even call themselves "conchs."

In 1982 the federal government, trying to thwart drug smugglers and illegal immigration, briefly limited travel to the mainland. The conchs bristled and, since they were going to be treated like foreigners, declared the creation of the Conch Republic. It has its own flag, dignitaries and Web site, but, like many Caribbean nations, it freely accepts American legal tender.

The federal government has never reacted officially to Key West's secession, and, more important, has not initiated foreign aid. Meanwhile, you don't need a passport to go there. Just pack an attitude and you'll fit right in. And perhaps, like Harry Truman and Ernest Hemingway, you'll fall in love with the place.

I wish that for you-from the southernmost part of my heart.