Key West: Curry Mansion Inn (May 2000)

My spouse and I stayed at the Curry Mansion Inn for three nights in mid-May 2000 in one of the two queen bedrooms, specifically the room located on the second floor of the mansion itself.

Rooms are appointed in wicker and antiques and offer private baths, phones, air conditioning, ceiling fans, and cable television. Guests enjoy amenities including a full deluxe breakfast, afternoon open bar cocktail party, and full access to the 22-room. Other amenities include on-site parking, swimming pool, and hot tub.

The Curry Mansion Inn was the home of Florida's first millionaire. The house was named for William Curry, a penniless Bahamian immigrant who made his fortune reputedly as a salvager -those scurrilous fellows who preyed on shipwrecked travelers in Florida's pirate-infested waters.- Curry attained status as Key West's first millionaire and began building the Mansion in 1869. The architectural details are common to wreckers, incorporating elements of many ports-of-call: the widow's walk of New England, the ornate trellises and balustrades of New Orleans and the columns and colonnades of the Deep South. Curry's son Milton completed the Mansion in 1899, furnishing it with the 18th-century antiques and Victorian pieces gracing the parlor today. The imposing entry is paneled in bird's-eye maple, hand-wrought spindles and Tiffany glass sliding doors. A formal dining room is staged with Haviland china and faux replicas of the Curry family's original solid-gold Tiffany flatware. An 1853 Chickering piano, reputedly most recently of Henry James's Newport home, sits in the music room. Key Lime Pie was first created in the Curry Mansion kitchen by Aunt Sally. Today the home of innkeeper, Edith Amsterdam, the Mansion is also an intriguing museum listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The James house is located directly across the street from the mansion and contains the house's spacious King Balcony rooms or Sitting Room Suites.

Nestled alongside the original 1899 Curry Mansion, the Guest Wing offers 28 elegant romantic rooms. All guests have full access to the entire estate. Like the Mansion, rooms are beautifully appointed in wicker and antiques.

One evening in 1975, Al Amsterdam docked his yacht in Key West's harbor and took a stroll with his wife, Edith, through downtown. Al and Edith, the owners of Casa Blanca on Cherry Island in upstate New York's Alexandria Bay, were especially fond of historic homes. Edith spied a wedding-cake white mansion aglow with the light of its crystal chandeliers. A for-sale sign hung in the yard. Fortunately for Key West visitors, the Amsterdams promptly bought what was to become the Curry Mansion Inn. The mansion was (and is) their family home ever since.

Response on Forum:
My husband and I stayed here several years ago. I chose it because I wanted to stay in a B&B rather than a hotel, and also because of its location just off Duval, room price, and the fact that it had a pool. We stayed in the mansion itself rather than in the guest complex behind it or across the street (I believe those rooms were less expensive at the time). We were not bothered by tours at all, but we were gone most days while they were going on. The room we had was fairly large, and its bathroom was huge. Breakfast was much more than continental, and I remember the happy hour being great as well, with many types of drinks and munchies available. The pool, while very small, was cute. We didn't use (or even see) the hot tub located at the guest house across the street. I think people feel it is "creepy" because it is old and Victorian, and also because if you take the Ghost Tour (it's either run by or begins at the Holiday Inn La Concha), they tell you that it is one of the historic homes on Key West that has a mysterious past. I think you've made a fine choice.