The Key Compound

It has no sewage system and poor telephone service. After a hurricane, the roughly paved streets are often under water for days. The architecture might best be described as "Florida nondescript." Yet Key Biscayne, only 15 minutes from Miami's garish strip, is fondly billed as an "island paradise" by its chamber of commerce--and in many ways it is.

The kids (and many adults) go barefoot, the primary hobby is beach-walking, and almost everyone seems to know everyone else. As a former resident puts it, life there is casual and tropical, "exactly what you'd think Florida should be." It is a middle-class dream of the place to go when the children are grown and retirement looms. For the next four years, Key Biscayne* will be President-elect Nixon's equivalent of the L.B.J. ranch or John Kennedy's Hyannisport compound.

Nixon has been vacationing in Key Biscayne off and on for more than 20 years, although he had never owned property on the Key itself. While he does not say much about his reasons for liking the place, he has spoken in general terms about its nice weather and its informality. Perhaps the most important factor in his decision to settle there semi-permanently is his long friendship with Bachelor Financier C. G. (Bebe) Rebozo, 57. Millionaire Rebozo's house is considered part of Nixon's new beachfront compound.

That compound was put together in a brief burst of home-buying just before Christmas. Nixon first purchased a three-bedroom, three-bath house for $127,700, then bought an adjoining dwelling for a similar price from Senator George Smathers to create a three-house enclave. (Smathers, who introduced Nixon to Rebozo in the late '40s, says that he "didn't want to sell it but I wanted Nixon to come here, and it was a case of having to sell it or else he wouldn't have come.")

Easy Neighbors. Now workmen are planting a thick hibiscus hedge around the compound to protect residents from the eyes of the curious. Bay Lane, on which the three houses stand, is blocked off by a five-foot-high, tightly latticed redwood screen. (An island resident says that she "really thinks most of the people feel sorry that he now has to live the way he has to.") There are rumors that one of the other two houses on the bay side of Bay Lane is currently occupied by Secret Servicemen, who control all entry to the street. Mrs. Perry O'Neal, whose husband owns the fifth bayside house on Bay Lane, says that she is "delighted to have the Nixons as neighbors. We know them only slightly, and we don't bother them." Key Biscayners are used to notables. Among residents are Sportscaster Red Barber, Aircraft Pioneer Grover Loening, N.Y. Yankee Official Larry MacPhail, Samuel C. Johnson, president of Johnson's Wax, Jack Paar and International Telephone and Telegraph President Harold S. Geneen. No longer on the scene is Candy Mossier, acquitted in 1966 of the murder of her wealthy husband Jacques. For the most part, residents seem quietly pleased that Nixon has joined their group, but there are a few minority opinions. Told of the Nixon purchases, one resident sniffed: "Hmmph. There goes the neighborhood."

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.

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