and other strange noises. Unable to cope with all of these unearthly goings-on, he invited a priest in to bless the entire establishment, room by room, with holy water. It had no effect. The activity continued, and the manager left shortly thereafter.
Many paranormal investigators have gone through the building, and it has appeared several times on television, including the Discovery Channel and the Travel Channel’s “America’s Most Haunted Restaurants.” A psychic who flew in for the Discovery Channel’s investigation came directly from the airport. She had never been to Key West before and knew nothing about the history of the Hard Rock Café. As she walked through, she did, indeed, discover the man upstairs. She felt that he was the one walking around the house, whistling, and tapping people on their shoulders. But she also found a little girl brushing her hair in the upstairs restroom and, just as puzzling, a woman and a small girl by the fireplace downstairs. She said that the reason there was so much activity after Hard Rock’s closing time was because the period between when the staff left and the cleaning crew came in was the only time the “family” could enjoy the house.
Don Estep was surprised when he learned this; no one had ever reported the woman and the two girls. Who were they? Could they have been Robert Curry’s family? And if they were, what had happened to them? Could they have all died there? If they had, why was there no historical evidence of that?
Sue and I paid a visit to Tom Hambright, the Marion County Library historian and a decades-long resident of Key West. He had some interesting things to tell us. The Key West Order of Elks purchased the Curry house in 1920, and it was the Elks Club until the mid-1960s. Then it was The Shell Man, a shop selling seashells, and Mario City, an Italian restaurant, among others. It also sat vacant from time to time.
Mr. Hambright had dozens of stories to tell us about Key West, and the many tales about the Curry House only added to its mystery. He had evidence that Robert Curry actually died in a New York hospital. He also pointed out that, although the legends say that Curry hanged himself from rafters in the second floor bathroom, there probably were no open beams or exposed rafters there as this was an expensive Victorian mansion. So, even if Robert Curry did hang himself in the house, he probably didn’t do it on the second floor but in the attic above.
He also told us about a visitor to the Elks’ Club who shot himself in the bathtub of the upstairs bathroom, ostensibly to contain the mess. Is the ghost of this stranger the whistler, the specter who walks through walls, the spirit who walks around and taps people on their shoulders?
There was also the information concerning a young divorcee with a somewhat tarnished reputation. The Elks often held dances in a large banquet room in the rear of the building. On one particular evening, the young lady was there dancing and flirting with as many men as she could. One minute she was on the dance floor, the center of attention, and the next she had vanished. No one saw her leave, and no one saw with whom she left. Several years later, her bones were found and identified on Saddlebunch Key, a small island to the north. The case, presumably a murder, was never solved. Could this nameless woman be haunting the house, sitting in front of the fireplace?
Mr. Hambright also knew people who had inexplicable experiences at the Elks Club. He had a friend in the early 1960s who tended bar there and often invited friends over in the late evening for a nightcap when the club was closing. He confessed that he was afraid to be in the place alone after hours because of all the strange noises he had heard.
The Elks Club maintenance man, another friend of Mr. Hambright’s, also had many unexplained experiences there. Once he was cleaning up on the first floor when he heard a loud crash upstairs. He raced up to see what had happened. A large, heavy table had been tipped over. He got frightened and turned on all the lights. He even went up to the attic, but the door was locked, and he knew no one could be up there. He checked the whole place—both the first and second floors and even the basement—and turned on every light. There wasn’t a soul in the place. Pretty frightening. He started packing up to go; that’s when he heard footsteps from the second or maybe the third floor attic. He’d had enough and rushed out.
Sue and I went back to the Hard Rock Café later that evening. We couldn’t stay up until two A.M., but it was close to midnight. Since it was mid-week, few people were around. Mr. Estep escorted us through the house again, even going into the basement. I had to agree—the basement was definitely a spooky place. We walked slowly through the main floor, then up to the second, and finally up to the third-floor offices. I even went into the ladies’ room on the second floor.
Unfortunately, neither of us had any experiences, except for some eerie feelings and temperature changes, all probably brought on by the stories we had heard. I only wished I had had my ghost magnet friend, Joanne, with me. I’m sure she would have sensed all the paranormal activity around us.
CHAPTER 3
Captain Tony’s Saloon
KEY WEST
CAPTAIN TONY’S SALOON on Greene Street is shrouded in myth and mystery. According to local lore, it was constructed in 1852 and was an icehouse, which doubled as the city morgue. In 1898 it supposedly housed the Navy’s Naval Radio Station and reported the sinking of the USS Maine around the world. By 1912 it became home to a cigar factory and a few years later to a bordello and bar. When Prohibition shut down the bars and gin mills across the country, several different speakeasies occupied the building. As one was closed by the authorities, another soon opened up—the last being The Blind Pig, which specialized in bootleg rum, gambling, and prostitutes.
When the Prohibition Act was repealed in 1933, Josie Russell rented it and opened Sloppy Joe’s Bar. Ernest Hemingway spent many evenings there between 1933 and 1937, drinking with his friends. When the landlord raised the rent by a dollar in 1938, Russell moved around the corner on Duval Street, and the bar passed through several hands under various names.
In 1958 Captain Tony Tarracino, a charter-boat captain and the archetypical “Conch,” bought the bar and christened it Captain Tony’s Saloon. Tony owned the bar until 1989, when he sold it to run for mayor of Key West, but he was always a frequent visitor there until his death in November 2008.
The stories about Captain Tony’s Saloon are legion.
When the place was supposedly a morgue, bodies of unidentified people or those too poor to pay for a funeral were buried right next door where a pool table stands now. At some point when the area was just an open piece of land, a hurricane blew through, and the resulting water caused many of the bones to rise to the surface. Captain Tony decided to make a small cemetery and give them a decent reburial. Since so many of the residents of Key West were Bahamians and voodoo and Santeria practitioners—and staunch believers in ghosts—he had a small stone wall built around the area with bottles of holy water interspersed throughout it.
And there is the story of Reba Sawyer. Married, she had a long-term affair with a married man. They used to meet at the bar, knowing neither of their spouses would likely come near the place. She died in 1950. Her husband discovered her infidelity a few years later while going through some of her old letters and showed up at the bar one evening with a small tombstone that read “Reba Sawyer 1900–1950.” He had taken it from the Key West cemetery. He dropped it on the sidewalk outside and said, “Here. She liked to hang out at this place so much, she might as well stay.” Captain Tony brought the tombstone inside the saloon, where it still rests. Captain Tony didn’t want to leave Reba out on the sidewalk.
There is also Elvira. Her flat tombstone is part of the south floor of the building and reads:
“Elvira
Daughter
