In the Meadows, the Season Opens in Elizabeth Bishop's Garden
November 5, 2026
November 5, 2026
"The house seems perfectly beautiful to me, inside and out," Elizabeth Bishop wrote to her friend and mentor Marianne Moore after buying 624 White Street in 1938. She paid $2,000 for it, with financial support from Louise Crane. She described its lines to another friend as "the most elegant thing in Key West."
Eighty-eight years later, anyone can walk into the yard behind that house on a weekday and sit down with a book. The Key West Literary Seminar lists the Bishop Garden as a public space for reading and quiet reflection, open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. For people in the Meadows, that garden is also where the season starts. Between now and the second week of January, the neighborhood's calendar fills with literary and arts events, and it begins at this address.
The Key West Citizen describes the Meadows as the blocks east of White Street, north of Truman and west of Eisenhower. It calls the neighborhood "a wild mix of vintage Conch cottages, mid-century stuccoed block rectangles and the occasional historic or historic look-a-like grand dame," held together "by white paint and green growing things." White Street is the western edge in that account. The same column notes that almost all of Old Town and the Meadows sit inside the city's historic district.
The Bishop House is a good example of what that district protects. It is one of the few surviving eyebrow houses in the Key West Historic District. Bishop arrived on the island around New Year's Eve 1936, at age 25. She sold the White Street house in 1946 to Lisbeth Weymouth, and it stayed in the Weymouth family for more than 70 years. She lived there from 1938 to 1946, and during those years she wrote many of the poems that appeared in her debut collection, North & South. The house is also one of the "three loved houses" she mourned in her poem "One Art." The Seminar bought it in 2019.
The Seminar's capital campaign for the house raised $3.65 million, led by Executive Director Arlo Haskell. Architect David Salay of Bender & Associates and contractor Nick Egan of Egan Built did the work, according to the Key West Citizen. This year the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation gave the project a 2026 Florida Preservation Award. It was one of seven winners in the Restoration, Rehabilitation or Adaptive Use category, alongside Miami's Freedom Tower and the Opa-locka Historic City Hall. In March, the Historic Florida Keys Foundation had already given the house its Star and Certificate of Excellence.
Visit Florida Keys & Key West lists what the restoration preserved. The original 19th-century windows and wood louvered shutters are back. The original built-in bookshelves, bathtubs, sinks, faucets, light fixtures and doorknobs were restored. The cistern collects rainwater again and now irrigates a garden of native plants and fruit trees.
The garden has more than 75 plant species, and over 50 of them are native to the Keys. It also has plants Bishop wrote about in her letters, notebooks and poems, and painted. Among them are the mango, avocado and Key lime trees she grew at home.
Haskell told the Key West Citizen what the restoration changed for the organization itself:
"The restored Bishop House is helping us serve our mission better than ever before. Thanks to the community's investment, our programming staff has grown to a year-round team of four, and we're building new educational programs like the Young Writers Studio, which will use the Bishop House as its main campus this summer."
The house is the Seminar's headquarters year-round. The interior opens for scheduled exhibitions, tours and literary events, and the garden is open on weekdays.
The Seminar runs a short weekly program in the garden. It's called "A Miracle for Breakfast." Haskell leads a 30-minute look at the garden from 8:30 to 9 a.m. on Wednesdays, covering what's growing and how it ties to Bishop's writing. Guests bring their own coffee and "charitable crumb."
Over the summer and early fall the walks were every other Wednesday or less. The Seminar's schedule had them going back to weekly on Nov. 4. On that schedule, the rest of the year's Wednesdays are:
The walk ends at 9 a.m., early enough for most workdays. Nothing else in the Meadows comes as often this season.
The garden's weekday hours make it a daytime place. White Street gets busy in the evening once a month, during Walk on White. On the third Thursday of each month, local galleries, studios and art businesses stay open with live music, open artist studios, street vendors, food and complimentary drinks. The Key West Chamber of Commerce says the district starts at Fausto's parking lot and runs along White Street and into Truman Avenue.
The organizers list two dates for the rest of the year, both from 6 to 8 p.m. at 1102 White St.:
So during November and December, White Street has a weekly garden walk on Wednesday mornings and a gallery evening once a month, a few blocks apart on the same street.
The Meadows' southern edge will be on screen next month. Apple TV+ premieres the second season of "Bad Monkey" on Wednesday, Dec. 2. According to Visit Florida Keys & Key West, the 10-episode season runs through Feb. 3, 2027. Gwen Filosa's Key West Newswire reported that the cast and crew, including Vince Vaughn, spent three weeks in Key West and wrapped filming in February 2026. Scenes were shot at the Half Shell Raw Bar at the Historic Seaport and at Don's Place, which the Newswire called "Key West's classic dive bar on Truman Avenue." Locals were cast as extras, several were hired as crew, and Fritas Cuban Burger Cafe supplied the craft services tables. Don's Place is at 1000 Truman Ave., at Grinnell Street.
The premiere falls on a Wednesday, which on the Seminar's schedule is also a garden walk morning.
The next big date for the garden's owner is the 44th Key West Literary Seminar, "Poetry," from Jan. 7 to 10, 2027. Patricia Smith is the keynote speaker. The Seminar's outline puts her address at the San Carlos Institute, 516 Duval St., on Jan. 7 from 7 to 8 p.m., with a keynote reception gala following from 8 to 10 p.m. Other presenters include Billy Collins, Hanif Abdurraqib, Natalie Diaz, Paul Muldoon, Marie Howe, Kevin Young, Emily Wilson and Campbell McGrath, along with Key West's own Emily Schulten. Full four-day registration is $825.
Several of the events around the Seminar are listed as free. The 2027 workshop schedule, which the Seminar marks as subject to change, lists these public events:
The January program builds on a long history with Bishop. In 1993 the annual Seminar was devoted to her poetry. That year her paintings were shown publicly for the first time, and United for Libraries dedicated 624 White Street as a Literary Landmark.
For visiting friends who want the wider story, the Seminar also runs a literary walking tour of about 90 minutes. It starts at the Monroe County Public Library, 700 Fleming St., and costs $30 per person, with lower rates for teachers, librarians and students.
The Bishop Garden opened through private fundraising. The City of Key West has its own plan for a nearby green space. The city's adopted capital plan for fiscal year 2026/27 includes renovations at Bayview Park, 1310–1320 Truman Ave., with a project window that ends Dec. 1, 2028. The listed scope includes landscaping, irrigation, sidewalks, tennis-court resurfacing, a new restroom, pro-shop and maintenance building, basketball court work, a larger playground, a water feature and bandstand work. The plan sets out scope and a schedule through 2028. For now, the Bishop Garden is open on weekday mornings, and the next "A Miracle for Breakfast" walk is Wednesday at 8:30.
At Bascom Grooms Real Estate, many of us have lived in and around the Meadows for years, and the Bishop House is one of our favorite places to send visiting friends. If you'd like a few more of our neighborhood suggestions for your out-of-town guests this season, contact us. We're happy to share them.
Whether you are thinking of buying, selling, or investing in Florida Keys real estate, you can count on the experts at Bascom Grooms Real Estate. Contact us today to discuss all your real estate needs!