Curry Mansion Inn

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, handwrought 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 Curry Mansion Inn...where the elegance of Key West's past is equaled only by the elegance of it's present.