Ballast Key is an island in the
Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral cay archipelago located off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and e ...
in
Monroe County Monroe County may refer to seventeen counties in the United States, all named for James Monroe:
* Monroe County, Alabama
*Monroe County, Arkansas
* Monroe County, Florida
* Monroe County, Georgia
*Monroe County, Illinois
*Monroe County, Indian ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. It is the southernmost point of land in the
contiguous United States
The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
. It was the last privately owned land within the boundaries of the
Key West National Wildlife Refuge
The Key West National Wildlife Refuge is a 189,497 acre (766.867 km2) National Wildlife Refuge located in Monroe County, Florida, between Key West, Florida and the Dry Tortugas . Only 2,019 acres (8.171 km2) of land are above sea lev ...
.
Located in the Outlying Islands of the Florida Keys, it is one of the
Mule Keys
The Mule Keys are a group of scattered islets in the Florida Keys in Monroe County, Florida, United States. They are between west of Key West, separated from it by the Northwest Channel. On the west, they are separated from the Marquesas Keys ...
that are west of
Key West
Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it cons ...
. The island's were donated by Key West developer
David W. Wolkowsky to
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US.
Founded in 1951, The Natu ...
, who deeded ownership of the land to the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...
while arranging to manage the resource.
Ballast Key had a cameo appearance in the Bond movie ''
Licence to Kill
''Licence to Kill'' is a 1989 spy film, the sixteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the second and final film to star Timothy Dalton as the MI6 agent James Bond. It sees Bond suspended from MI6 as he pursues t ...
'' and it and Mr. Wolkowsky made the pages of the novel as well. "David, it's James, James Bond...I've broken into your island. I hope you don't mind", reads a passage in the book. It is also used in the final scene of the 2015 science fiction thriller ''
Self/less
''Self/less'' is a 2015 American science fiction action thriller film directed by Tarsem Singh, produced by Ram Bergman and James D. Stern and written by Alex and David Pastor. The film tells the story of a business tycoon and billionaire named D ...
''. Over the years, Wolkowsky has hosted numerous artists, writers and celebrities on Ballast Key, including
Jimmy Buffett
James William Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and businessman. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffet ...
,
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...
,
Truman Capote
Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...
,
Nancy Friday
Nancy Colbert Friday (August 27, 1933 – November 5, 2017) was an American author who wrote on the topics of female sexuality and liberation. Her writings argue that women have often been reared under an ideal of womanhood, which was outdated an ...
,
Judy Blume
Judith Blume ( née Sussman; born February 12, 1938) is an American writer of children's, young adult and adult fiction. Blume began writing in 1959 and has published more than 25 novels. Among her best-known works are '' Are You There God? It's ...
,
John Hersey
John Richard Hersey (June 17, 1914 – March 24, 1993) was an American writer and journalist. He is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to n ...
,
John Malcolm Brinnin
John Malcolm Brinnin (September 13, 1916 – June 26, 1998) was a Canadian-born American poet and literary critic.
Life and work
Brinnin was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to American parents John A. Brinnin and Frances Malcolm Brinnin ...
,
Richard Wilbur
Richard Purdy Wilbur (March 1, 1921 – October 14, 2017) was an American poet and literary translator. One of the foremost poets of his generation, Wilbur's work, composed primarily in traditional forms, was marked by its wit, charm, and gentle ...
,
Robert Stone, British prime minister
Edward Heath,
Prince Michael of Greece
Prince Michael of Greece and Denmark, (born 7 January 1939) is a Greek prince, historian, and author. He has written several historical books and biographies of Greek and other European figures, Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh. " Burke’s Royal F ...
,
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson (5 June 1928 – 14 November 1991) was an English theatre and film director and producer whose career spanned five decades. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film ''Tom Jones (1963 film ...
,
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (born February 16, 1952) is an American documentary filmmaker and portrait photographer based in New York City. The majority of his work is shot in large format.
Early life
Greenfield-Sanders was born on February 16, ...
,
The Bee Gees
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
,
Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan (; born Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García; born 1 September 1957) is a Cuban-American singer, actress, and businesswoman. Estefan is a seven-time Grammy Award winner, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and has been ...
, Natica Waterbury,
Lucius Beebe
Lucius Morris Beebe (December 9, 1902 – February 4, 1966) was an American writer, gourmand, photographer, railroad historian, journalist, and syndicated columnist.
Early life and education
Beebe was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts, to a prom ...
,
Lady Caroline Blackwood
Lady Caroline Blackwood (16 July 1931 – 14 February 1996) was an English writer, and the eldest child of the 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and the brewery heiress Maureen Guinness.
Active in the literary world through her journalism an ...
, and an occasional
Vanderbilt,
Rockefeller Rockefeller is a German surname, originally given to people from the village of Rockenfeld near Neuwied in the Rhineland and commonly referring to subjects associated with the Rockefeller family. It may refer to:
People with the name Rockefeller fa ...
,
Mellon, and
Duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...
.
Tennessee Williams often painted canvases while visiting David Wolkowsky on Ballast Key in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Ballast Key features a main house with four bedrooms and a master suite, and a fully equipped three-bedroom guesthouse overlooking a palm tree-lined sand beach. Water is supplied to the homes by
desalination
Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in Soil salinity control, soil desalination, which is an issue f ...
.
References
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