Effort to Ban Houseboat Row Stirs Up Key West : Florida: Mayor wants to return the area to a pristine state. But residents say some vessels can’t make the trip to new site.

On a late spring day, Captain Claudia is living the good life, but not necessarily an easy one. She is painting her houseboat, Aquarius, on the eastern shore of paradise.

“To me it looks like a big wedding cake,” Claudia Wood says of her immaculate turquoise-and-white triple-decker on Key West’s Houseboat Row. “I tell you, I had to marry it when I got it.”

Wood wouldn’t have it any other way. She relishes a life many only dream about.

If she is not working on her beloved houseboat or playing the tenor saxophone, she is fishing. If she isn’t fishing, she is taking divers or snorkelers to her favorite spots in the ocean or Florida Bay.

“I just live day to day and everything is just as beautiful as I’ve ever seen,” says Wood, 32.

But a big part of Wood’s world could be literally hauled away and dismantled if Key West’s mayor has his way. In April, the city joined with the Florida Cabinet and sued in Monroe County Circuit Court to evict the 26 boat owners on Houseboat Row.

Mayor Dennis Wardlow, who has made a career out of the houseboat issue, says he wants the area returned to a pristine state. An old photograph of the area--without houseboats--hangs in his office.

“I don’t see anything about Houseboat Row that is beneficial. It’s just a bunch of people camping out,” Wardlow says. “I used to fish in that area.”

He says the residents can tug their boats around to new slips at the Garrison Bight Marina on the other side of the island as part of a lease agreement reached in the mid-1980s.

But boats such as the Aquarius no longer have the draft to make the long and expensive haul, and others will just tear up the bay bottom, residents say.

Despite denials, they contend the mayor really wants to make way for development by a wealthy landowner who has property surrounding the area.

“For us, it’s a battle for our homes and where we’ve lived for years,” says George Murphy, who is marshaling the fight against the mayor. “Some people perceive it as a battle between what may be called the funky old charm of Key West and the less-than-insightful development which has gone on over the years.”

What’s more, Houseboat Row is not even on city property--so its residents cannot vote. “One has to question the mayor’s motives in aggressively pursuing a property that is outside his city limits,” Murphy says.

People have been “camping out” on Cow Key Channel for nearly four decades, ever since Morgan Dennis--an illustrator and author of children’s books--petitioned for and received permission in 1956 to moor his houseboat, The Sea Dog, on the seawall.

Soon after, the Aquarius moved next door. Today, 26 boats are on the row, with names like Lobster Trap, Sun Star and Sweet Aleta.

Wendy Gleason, who owns Sweet Aleta, a gray-and-pink barge, says the area is a landmark. “The tourists love Houseboat Row. It’s a way of life that a lot of people dream about but never pursue.”

Some residents contend that the real problem is not Houseboat Row, but dozens of smaller boats that squatters have anchored in the channel, just yards away from the houseboats.

“They’re ramshackle shacks; they’re scarring the bottom,” says Murphy, who now owns The Sea Dog and rents it out. “They’re tearing up the sea grass.”

The 45-year-old local radio personality is the type of creative madman who seems to prosper in Key West--Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams both lived here. He ran against Wardlow last year and got 43% of the vote.

Murphy contends that the city wants to turn public sentiment against Houseboat Row by allowing the squatter boats in the channel to perpetuate an eyesore. The city built dinghies in which these boats could dump their trash while Houseboat Row residents pay commercial rates to have their garbage hauled away, he said.

Much of the channel bottom is owned by real estate magnates Ed and Joan Knight. The Knights also own more than 139 acres of land surrounding Houseboat Row--including a nearby man-made island where they live.

Residents fear that the Knights plan to develop their property and that a marina will be built where Houseboat Row is now. After all, the channel is the only direct waterway on the island to Key West’s cash cow: the Atlantic Ocean.

But the mayor says he would fight any proposed development and Knight, 77, says he has no intention of developing his property: “We have no agenda and I think anybody in Key West who knows us knows that’s the story.”

The mayor says Houseboat Row is notorious for its sordid past, particularly in the early 1970s, when the “Outlaws” motorcycle gang took up residence in a houseboat called “Proud Mary.”

Murphy acknowledges that “A lot of old-timers see Houseboat Row as this run-down neighborhood of ne’er-do-wells. But, in fact, they’re carpenters, lab technicians, charter boat captains.”

People like Captain Claudia. By now she is barefoot, covered in paint and just about done giving the Aquarius a new skin. She takes a look at her beloved boat and decides it really doesn’t look like a wedding cake: “It’s more like a riverboat.”

“Nah,” Murphy says. “It looks more like heaven.”