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Before Nixon's arrival, Key Biscayne's major claim to fame was Crandon Park, a huge oceanfront expanse of beach and picnic facilities that takes up most of the Key's northern end. The residential area is in mid-island, and another, smaller park occupies the southern tip. About 5,000 people live on the key, and their incomes range from around $10,000 to the six-figure bracket. There is an equally varied set of homes: unpretentious three-bedroom cottages sell for about $20,000, but some large houses sell for more than $300,000. There is a not-particularly-elegant yacht club, shopping centers and a restaurant or two, including Nixon's favorite, Jamaica Inn. The island's rapid development prompted Mrs. Muriel Curtis, president of the Key Biscayne Beach Club, to say that she feels that she "should have blown up the bridge 17 years ago, when we were all barefoot and happy."
Wasp Enclave. Key Biscayne, in fact, has until now been a quiet, relaxed, offshore suburb largely populated by white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Americans. "Sure," says Real Estate Broker Peter Ferguson, a twelve-year resident, "we have our drunks, our fags, our swinging couples and our divorcees—just like any other place." But the island has few problems faced by most mainland communities. Only three Negroes live there. While the Key Biscayne Hotel quietly ended its gentiles-only policy a decade ago, the Key Biscayne Club still allows no one but Caucasians to enjoy its facilities. (A Negro youth and his white host were thrown off the club's beach for breaking that rule in 1966.)
For Richard Nixon, the prototype of the transient, rootless American, Key Biscayne is an appropriate hideaway. He has almost no friends on the key, and his visits there will be therapeutic, not social. Born and educated in California, Nixon went to Washington, spent almost six restless years in equally restless Manhattan, and now faces a hectic four-year term. Key Biscayne, populated by people very like himself who have come South seeking sun and sand, offers him the comfort and privacy he needs, and tactful, close-mouthed Bebe Rebozo is one of the few intimates deeply trusted by the President-elect. "They're not far wrong if they call it Dullsville," says Senator Smathers. Given the burdens Nixon will assume on Jan. 20, Dullsville may be just the spot he needs in his leisure time.
*The island is named after the bay, which many assume is simply a variation on the Bay of Biscay, between France and Spain. Another theory is that it is named after Don Pedro el Biscaino, onetime keeper of swans at the Spanish court, who lived on one of the islands in the bay.