Editor’s Note: This delightful romp through an older-era Key West hit me hard, as our little band of barroom refugees up in Virginia has first lost Willow and then Front Page here in Arlington. I remember a night in Key West where we stumbled into the Chart House to observe the table where famed treasure-hunter Mel Fischer did his business. Marlow nails this one nicely!

– Vic

Chart Room Requiem

Just when I thought I knew most of what there is to know about Key West, something new popped up.

We were dining on some finely grilled cow in our side garden when an old islander friend texted me that he had a newbie visitor with him at the famous Chart Room bar inside the Pier House resort complex at 0 Duval Street.

The Pier House was built in 1967-68 on the old dilapidated Havanna Docks and land rail terminus of Flagler’s defunct Overseas Railroad. The Chart Room’s progenitor had been an old timey sailor and boatmen’s bar and restaurant that was located dockside before the Pier House developer moved it to its current location and then built a 50 room resort motor lodge around it.

I first dropped by in 1974. It had a gritty ambience with down on their luck types rubbing elbows with old guard conchs, politicians, bankers and hippies drinking stiff pour. $1.25 cocktails. At that time Mel Fischer ran his treasure salvor business on the round table at the back of the bar, while Jimmy Buffett several years before got his first paying gig in town singing his own songs near the front of the bar. Back then it was mostly a day bar outside of weekends, a place for locals, fishermen, fire and police chiefs, state and local attorney generals and future celebrities and wannabes.

When the original owner and developer sold the Pier House/Chart Room complex five years ago in 2013 to a mainland corporate entity (Remington) many regulars worried that things were gonna change. They did, and for a while the Chart Room escaped being renovated out of its funky charm. The Pier House was subjected to a series of multi 8 figure renovations and expansions that turned it into something with a more boutique-y than island paradise vibe.

Some called the Chart Room “the cave” back in the day because of its peculiar bunker ambiance. From time to time in those times, pigeons were known to wander in to get some of the free popcorn and peanuts. We never gave them the hot dogs that were served free each day to those who kept ordering drinks.

Other charming Chart Room quirks were its annual free to regulars Thanksgiving Day pot luck dinner and Halloween pumpkin carving contests — mine were always the standard — others submitted more artistic or porno creations.

But the biggest oddities were the bar’s loveable and loyal patronage and long time employees, their unusual life stories and resting places. More than a few were quite famous like Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Corcoran, Tom McGuane, Jim Croce, and singer Jerry Jeff Walker.

The 70s were a time when no one was famous and drinking was a serious island sport. One of the original Chart Room bartender’s story was about his untimely end — on the run from the law and out of state. Jimmy Buffett’s song “A Pirate Looks at 40” is widely thought to commemorate this gent. It rings true to me at least. Other patrons were of a more common variety but just as interesting like Panama Peat and Whistle Pants.

Panama Peat 2010

Peat was a long time friend and employee of Mel Fisher. Most of his antics remain protected by bar-attorney-client privilege

Whistle Pants’ real name was James Cox who was a banker. He made his fortune when the Amercian S&L’s went under. He retired thereafter in his late 30s to Key West. Retirement bored him, so he went into business, designing and making men’s pants. Billowy, open on the sides, they had an attached whistle. Ergo, the pants were known as whistle pants. He sold them in stores and would ride around on his bicycle selling them on the streets.

Thus he became Whistle Pants. For a time, he had a local cable television show entitled IIRC Weather in Revue. He went on camera after a break from the Chart Room and gave yesterday’s weather and had a 100 percent accuracy record. He said it was for people who missed yesterday. That incuded a lot of islanders.

When the Chart Room changed owners, we knew that change was inevitable. It came suddenly when I and a friend drove into the Pier House parking area. The attendant stopped me (this was a first). He was a new. The old ones had obviously not been rehired. We told him where we were going. He told us they were in the process of beginning a valet parking system. He gave me something to put on my visor. He also gave me a printed stub. I was instructed to have it stamped by whoever was working in the Chart Room. Whatta crock! We soon learned how to enter the lot’s back entrance without all this folderol.

The Chart Room was seemingly left alone until one of the more astute and/or sober of us patrons noticed during the summer of 2014 that the drinks, while still strong, appeared to be a bit smaller. That should have been our tip off . . .

The new owners were about to disturb the dead.

Yes, you read that correctly. Some of the Chart Room regulars dating back to the early 70s had made plans to entomb part of their ash remains inside its wooden bar rail. Conch Republic Army General Geoff Chapman, Panama Peat, Whistle Pants and Mel Fisher are, or should I say were, there. See the brass plates atop their places at the bar in the below photo. They rested inside carved out hollows in small dime sized baggy amounts.

Long before I left the island in 2016 all but one of the mini crypts had been filled.

Earlier some suspected the new owner(s) had moved the bar rail occupants to an old, tarnished, brass bar rail tube affixed overhead of the barstools when they “freshened” the Chart Room several years ago.

Then last night while I gave my islander friend and his mainland guest a guided tour via cellphone texts of the bar’s crazy past, I found out that the overhead brass rail has gone missing.

The Chart Room wooden bar rail had holes drilled/carved in it with small brass
name plates below them. They corked and stained the holes until the
remains of the assigned bar regular were available for their unending happy hour.

Whatta crock.

Chart room (circa 2013?) — once it was the world’s best bolt hole bar.

The Chart Room had been like the cool kid you remember from high school. Whether or not he got the prom queen or threw the best parties, all of the wildest stories were attributed to him.

Now, it seems to be just another squeeky clean, Disneyfide-plastic fern bar with some fading photos and memorobilia from long ago, about which practically none of its patrons or employees know anything.

We should have snorted those ash-hole remains when we could have done so, instead of letting them get tossed.

Chart Room late 2017. Back in the day, locals scoffed at margaritas. Nowdays,
fru fru drinks have snuck into this hotel-like-room-turned-bar’s offerings. Hack ptuie.

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