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Brief
History of Linderman Key
By Jerry Wilkinson
The history
of North Key Largo would not be complete without at least a mention of "Linderman Key." While presenting the little I know about Linderman
Key, at the end I will mention the even lessor known "Grayvik."
Together, both locations will show how little we
have documented the history of the Upper Keys. I am kind of embarrassed
to show so little, but there will never be more unless I start.
If not familiar with the North Key Largo area
please refer to the chart at the right. You will probably have to
'click' to enlarge the chart to read.
Most of this information on Linderman Key I obtained
from Pete
Perdue, survivor of the 1935 hurricane, former owner of Perdue-Dean
Marina former resident of Ocean Reef and now deceased.
Other than possibly of the Tequesta Indians,
the
island's original owners were Dr's. Linderman. At the time I did not
ask Pete for their first names. In the real world, both
were PhD's of medicines of plants. The Linderman's had traveled the
world and used the Florida Year-Round Club (later the Angler's Club)
as their land base when in this area. I will insert here info from my later
research on early Florida
Year-Round Club's operations that there were two Canadians, Bert and
Jean Linderman, who donated two gasoline Delco electric generators for its
operations; therefore, I feel
certain that they were the same Linderman family.
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Back to Pete, some time around the 1930s they
started work on
a magnificent two-story Spanish style main house with very elaborate
wrought iron work. In addition, a guest house, staff house and a
utility building for generator with banks of batteries and two huge
water cisterns. Per Pete Perdue, the photo to the right was the mansion
looking it from the water's edge. It was far enough up a small creek
off of Broad Creek to have protection from the strong squall winds
that occur without much warning. It is rumored to have been
called Liar's Lair.
With close examination the
location of the house can be seen at the tip of the black arrow point
in the chart above. Few will disagree that even with today's standards,
this house with all its amenities was an opulent house.
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There were other
early 1900s grand
private residences in the Upper Keys. There is no surviving photo, but
a Fargo, North Dakota resident and avid fisherman, W.A Scott, built a
fine two-story coral-rock house several miles to the south which was
expanded into the Key Largo Angler's Club main dining room.
Another is the Key Largo Sound Dr.
George Engel's house built in about the same
time period - but without additional buildings. This castle home was
styled after an European castle and
survives today on Oceana Drive, just
north of the Marvin Adams
Waterway.
Below the Largo Sound Castle photo is a photo
of another
coral rock castle-like home was
built for L. E. Goetz on Jewfish Key, Fiesta Key today (2005),
allegedly around the same time period.
Note a sizable boat tied to the
dock and an automobile to the center left; therefore, this photo is
post 1938. The Greyhound Corporation purchased the Key
in the
late
1940s and later a propane tank explosion damaged the house to the
extent that it was torn down.
Continuing with Pete Perdue's
recollection, the Linderman's used the
Grayvik Basin and the Key Largo Year-Round Club as land bases to
oversee construction of Liar's Lair. He
believed Dr. Linderman died just before
World War II and his wife, Jean Linderman took over the site. When
WW-II, began,
she became very involved in the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and actually
patrolled the waters herself. There were recollections of Jean's
ventures with her 36 foot Chris Craft but few are recorded.
Pete's recollection was the Mrs.
Linderman moved away and donated the island to the University of Miami,
which in turn leased to the CIA for its training operations for the Bay
of Pigs. For us in the Keys this period is a period of hear-say;
however, from the National Park Service book "Cold War in South Florida" we have
some information on the Linderman Key site:
1) It was used by the CIA as a safe
house known as 'Pirates Lair' and for maritime training operations. The
safe house consisted of four houses dispersed on three-acre island. and
that only one building could be seen from the deep-water canal.
2) The complex was used to teach Cuban
exiles the V-20 boat, Boston-Whaler type vessels and rubber rafts with
silenced motors assault techniques and operations.
3) The crafts were specially
rebuilt to CIA specifications by South Florida boat yards so of which
included reinforced hulls, armor plating, modified engines, electronic
gear and hardened points to mount automatic weapons.
Back to Pete's recollections, he said that shortly after the CIA pulled
out, there was a terrific explosion in the main house. The explosion
hurled bricks and steel beams clear across the island. Folks assumed it
was plastic explosives left from the training camp set off as a grand
finale to the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs. "Miami Vice" and the
Manos films shot scenes there.
- Grayvik -
My thanks to Pete Perdue and now to the place that Pete referred to as "Grayvik" and misspelled by me in the above chart. People at Ocean Reef
know the name "Grayvik," but that is about all. This chart is the sole
primary
documentation that I have of
General Ivor Thorn-Gray building of "Grayvik." This is not to say that
I cannot find plenty of documentation of Ivor Thorn-Gray as the
Internet and other sources have plenty.
The following data is from a
multitude of researchers all trying to pin down his final days in the
U.S. 'Ivor Thord-Gray was born in Stockholm 17th
April 1878 as Thord
Ivar
Hallström. His parents were August Reinhold Hallström
(1840-1913) and Hilda
Svensson (1845-1925). August Hallström was a teacher in Maria
Elementary School
in Stockholm, which young Thord attended for four years.'
After many international escapades, 'in 1933,
Thord divorced and on 11th June 1933 married Winifred
Ingersoll
(1884-1960) and settled down in Miami. When his house Grayvik on North
Key
Largo was destroyed in a hurricane, the family moved to Coral
Gables,
Florida.' A Swedish
researcher feels that 'Grayvik' would be an appropriate Swedish name
that he would have given.
This places Thord-Gray in Miami and he
could have easily built a place on Key Largo where the Ocean Reef Club
will originate in 1944. Ocean Reef does have a street named Grayvik
and it is on the narrow peninsular shown on the chart above.
What is more there is documentation that on 8
April 1935, he became 'Major General of the Florida Militia and Chief
of
the
Personal Staff to the Governor of Florida, David Sholtz,' yet I cannot
find anyone in Tallahassee who even remembers the name. The great Labor
Day Hurricane of 1935 could have been the hurricane that destroyed his
house at Grayvik, if so I think that he would have made an appearance.
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