A small yet mighty Miami house survived storms and sin but is now lost forever
July 13, 2021 | Story by Edysmar Diaz-Cruz | Photo illustration by Houston Harwood
On a glorious spring day, Freddy Stebbins pulls duct tape out of his back pocket and slaps it on the blue tarp of his small family boat. An instant fix for the 17-foot Carolina Skiff that has been sitting in his backyard for months.
Stebbins, 53, fuels up the motor and scrubs the floors with saltwater. His determination to get back out on the ocean is as fierce as a jack fish fighting a fisherman’s hook.
He has friends waiting for him at No Name Harbor, a natural bay nestled in the eastern shoreline of Key Biscayne. Stebbins steers his boat against the waves toward the bay.
He used to know these waters well. As a boy, he sat alongside his father who taught him how to sharpen a hook, cast bait and measure fish on the family boat. He was only 11 when he reeled in his first big catch: a snapping spiny lobster. By 12, he tagged along on tours of Miami and its surrounding waters with his father’s best friend, Paul George, the resident historian at the HistoryMiami Museum. The two men instilled in Stebbins an appreciation of his Florida heritage and the city he called home. With every trip, his love for life on the water grew. These days, he leads his own tour on the familiar route to a quirky and quintessentially Miami place, known as Stiltsville. This series of homes was built starting in the 1930s and seems from afar to float effortlessly on the glimmering waters.
The wooden houses were built on shallow seagrass beds and sand flats on the edge of Key Biscayne, close to where it meets the mighty Atlantic. Of the 27 houses that stood in the water, only seven remained until earlier this year.
On many a sunny day, Stebbins navigated to the Leshaw House, a sky-blue shack perched on a shallow channel feeding into the ocean. His friends, the Gerrish family, invited him there. The house was small but strong. It had endured storms and sea for six long decades. It was Stebbins’ favorite among all the Stiltsville structures.
Those journeys taught Stebbins two important lessons: how to navigate difficult currents on the trip from the homes to the mainland, and how to enjoy the serenity and stillness of a quiet moment.
But things are different now.
On this trip, like all the others he has made in his life, Stebbins will go on the same path in the bay toward Stiltsville. But this time, he plans to visit the Harden home, known more commonly as the A-frame house. After what happened last January, Stebbins can no longer see his favorite house. At least, not the way it was before.
As Freddy Stebbins’ boat nears the Harden home, he’s forced to slow down and hop off to turn the boat away from the shallow sandbar. He did not want to risk getting stranded. (Edysmar Diaz-Cruz/Atrium)
The historian and the sea
Paul George conducted his first tour of Stiltsville 30 years ago. Since then, he’s done thousands of them with Stebbins joining him as a budding pre-teen. Having studied the history of the homes with the diligence of a reporter, George spent years collecting documents: newspaper clippings, interviews, books and magazines. He has been to all but two of the homes, the Hick House and the Leshaw house, and hoped he would be able to visit those someday.
Even Stebbins agrees that George may just be the best man in Miami to tell Stiltsville’s story. He loves sharing the knowledge he’s acquired.
From ashore, onlookers have to squint and lean forward to discern the details of the shacks. Boating is the best way to experience its beauty.
A good tour is pure theater. Waves splash against the boat. Tourists taste the salty air, the sun beats down on their straw hats and baseball caps. George always stands at the head of the boat as it enters the Biscayne channel, waving his arms to enunciate every Florida fact. He’ll remind tourists that they are crossing a man-made feat: Henry Flagler, an early Florida pioneer, was behind its creation in the late 1890s to allow steamboats to move from the shallow bay to the deeper waters of the Atlantic.
George encourages tourists to imagine 27 wooden homes scattered across the waters. Over the years, hurricanes have taken their toll, leaving behind the legendary seven. Every time, the tourists are blown away by the shacks’ collective pastel beauty amid Florida’s most cherished natural resource.
But Stiltsville’s history is hardly steeped in serenity.
In the 1930s, Captain Eddie “Crawfish” Walker built his first shack to sell bait and booze during an era of prohibition, gambling and corruption. Walker needed to break the law in peace and a shack on stilts provided a perfect cloak of privacy. By the 1950s, Miami’s elite circle of lawyers, bankers and politicians erected their own shacks where they sipped their drinks and enjoyed the view.
On his tours, George points to each house as his boat passes by. He relishes the wonder in the visitors’ eyes.
First, heads turn right to see the Miami Springs Power Boat Club.
Then they turn to the left, where the Jimmy Ellenburg House sits.
To the right lies the Baldwin, Sessions House.
The Leshaw House would have crept up to the right before heads turned left for the neighboring A-frame house. Now, if tourists look in that direction, all they will find are memories.
Stebbins steers his boat as close as possible to the rubble left behind by the Leshaw house fire. He was surprised to find paintings and etchings on the concrete pillars. (Edysmar Diaz-Cruz/Atrium)
The Leshaw House
Stebbins spent many weekends at the Leshaw House. He swam with the mullets that turned the water black with activity. Dolphins dove by while he drank with friends and relatives of the Gerrish family. Everything inside was furnished by shipwreck material and, though not as large as the other Stiltsville homes, the house caught the attention of sports fishermen and families alike.
Stebbins celebrated his 40th birthday there, with over 100 guests and dozens of boats floating around the dock. Guests swam and drank, jumping off the deck into the bay below. It was always a good time. But it was also, technically, dangerous.
In 1999, the National Park Service notified Stiltsville homeowners the houses would be removed once their leases ended. John Gerrish would have none of it. His family frequented the Leshaw home for more than three generations. He decided to organize a protest party to encourage guests to sign a petition pleading for an extension of their leases.
The party was rowdy and grand, keeping with the true spirit of Stiltsville. Gerrish remembers the Coast Guard keeping an eye on the revelers from the mainland but the party was a success; the Gerrishes racked up about 800 signatures on the petition.
Just yards above the shallow flats, Stebbins launches himself off the deck of the Leeshaw house alongside friends and relatives of the Gerrish clan. (Photos courtesy of Freddy Stebbins)
Eventually, an extension of the leases was granted on one condition: The owners would have to open the houses to the public and promise to take responsibility for upkeep. Maintenance was key to their survival. That’s because once a home sustains more than 50 percent damage and deterioration, the Biscayne National Park Service mandates the structure is not eligible to be rebuilt.
Gerrish and his family were happy to oblige, as were the rest of the owners. Gerrish’s family owns a construction company, so they were equipped with the knowledge and skills to maintain it.
So was born the Stiltsville Trust, a loose coalition of owners who agreed to oversee the care of the aging homes. Floridians were allowed to request permits from the trust and create their own memories. The weekend barbeques continued. And the parties resumed.
All was well with the Leshaw House until Hurricane Irma roared through in 2017, leaving the Gerrishes with massive reparations. Stebbins stepped in to help. It was his way of giving back to the home that meant so much to him.
He enjoyed sharing the magic of sunsets and sunrises at the Leshaw home with non-Floridians. In early 2021, determined to show a New York friend the magic of a Stiltsville sunset, Stebbins equipped his boat for the 15-minute journey from the Crandon Park Marina to the tip of Key Biscayne to the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
It was his last memory of the Leshaw home, but just as vivid as the rest. What better way to introduce someone to the magic of Miami than to sit shoulder to shoulder, feet dangling yards above pristine waters?
Stiltsville. 1980. Stiltsville is located south of Key Biscayne on the shallow seagrass beds where the homes rest on pilings sunk into the bedrock bottom of the water. (Photo courtesy of The HistoryMiami Museum)
Jan. 11, 2021
On the morning of Jan. 11, Gerrish was sipping his morning coffee when a friend from Key West texted him a photo.
“Oh my god, that’s my house!” he gasped.
The image was of the Leshaw House engulfed in flames.
Gerrish ran to share the news with his mom, but she already knew. Both his dad and brother had already left to see the damage.
Meanwhile, in Coconut Grove, Stebbins sat in his family’s living room when he turned on the news at 11:30. One of the Stiltsville homes had caught on fire; there were flames and smoke on the water.
“There’s only a one in seven chance,” he thought to himself, before recognizing the image of the Leshaw House.
It had withstood killer hurricanes over the decades, but it took only 11 minutes for the fire to raze the home to its foundation.
Stebbins ties his family boat to the Harden house, which belongs to the family of a longtime friend. This is the closest he can observe the Leshaw home, which is where he’d spend most of his weekends growing up. (Edysmar Diaz-Cruz/Atrium)
Back to the shallows
Now, on this spring day, the wind pushes back against Stebbins’ small boat as it makes its way to Stiltsville, making the mile journey seem much longer. As the low tide uncovers a shallow sandbar, Stebbins is forced to take it slow.
“This is exactly how the first shack was built,” he says.
A barge got stuck in the shallow waters, he tells his guests, and people began to put rock and concrete in it. Then it became a shack on stilts. He pauses to admire a stingray swim through the seagrass, glad to be out in the water again.
The A-frame house comes into view; so do the remains of the Leshaw home. The pillars of its foundation, charred, and the first floor, collapsed into the docks. A flock of birds sunbathe atop the rubble, undisturbed. To them, it’s a fine place to rest, not a piece of lost history.
Stebbins ties the boat to the A-frame house. This is where he used to sit and observe his beloved Leshaw home amid sky-blue waters and water-color sunsets.
“I took it for granted,” he says. “Being able to stop there. I can’t do that anymore, and it makes me sad.”
For a moment, he sees a glimmer of hope. The damage isn’t as bad as he thought. He catches a glimpse of a painting etched on a stone. The blue silhouette of a woman on one pillar and the words “Let’s Make Out” in pink on another.
From the roof of the A-frame home, Stebbins can see Miami’s skyline, the lighthouse, other boaters and paragliders. From that vantage point, it’s easy to see what makes Miami a city like no other.
On the way back to the marina, Stebbins’s guests ask him what caused the fire.
Stebbins doesn’t know. Nobody does for that matter. The home was not being used at the time of the fire, according to the Miami Fire Department.
Equipped with no electrical power nor generator, the cause of fire remains a mystery. Stebbins suspects people were at the structure the night before and left a stove on. Or maybe the ashes of a cigarette caught wind.
Whatever it was, the damage was done by morning.
The Gerrish family asked the Biscayne National Park Service if they could reconsider their mandate one last time. They urged the home to qualify for reconstruction, but after witnessing the damage with his own eyes, Stebbins knew the answer. The Biscayne National Park Service’s decision would be final: The Leshaw House had returned to the sea from which it came. And there it would stay.
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