This book offers a selection of what are probably the most historically interesting, esthetically appealing, and photogenic of the nineteenth-century houses in the Key West historic district. Some are examples of well-known architectural styles, whereas others were completely individually conceived.

Many of Key West's houses were built by ship's carpenters. They built strong, tight, shiplike hoses, most working without plans other than memories of vessels and seaport homes from their own past. They borrowed architectural features from New England and the West Indies, and sometimes added touches from the latest style: Greek Revival columns or Creole trellises. Other Key West houses are examples of practical vernacular architecture. Key West was really an industrial town and many of its houses were for workers who had little to spend on housing. The shotgun houses are simple, undecorated houses, many of them built by cigar-makers for their workers.

And there are the great houses, like the Heritage House, the Cosgrove House, the Hemingway House, and the Southernmost House--large and famous houses with unique and proud histories--all wih a Key West flavor.

The final architectural mix, what we see now in Key West's Old Town, can only be called, like the natives themselves, Conch.