Stiltsville — Biscayne Bay's Seven Wooden Houses on Stilts
A mile off Cape Florida, seven wooden houses stand on pilings over three feet of turquoise water. They are the last of thirty. They survived Hurricane Andrew. You cannot legally walk inside without a permit — but you can boat there, kayak there, and photograph them at golden hour.
The boat leaves Crandon Marina at 2 PM. Twenty minutes south, after you’ve cleared the channel markers off Cape Florida and the captain has cut the throttle to idle, you start to see them — squat wooden boxes on chicken legs, hovering over water so shallow you can read the sand through it. There are seven. From a distance, in the haze, they look like a hallucination.
That’s Stiltsville. It is one of the most photographed places in Miami that almost nobody has actually been to.
Three feet of water. Two miles from downtown. Built by rum-runners. Half-destroyed by a hurricane. Still standing because a non-profit decided they should.
What it is
In 1933 — Prohibition still alive, Miami still small — a fisherman called Eddie “Crawfish” Walker built a shack on stilts over the Biscayne Bay flats and ran a bar out of it. The flats were just outside Dade County jurisdiction, so the drinks were legal-ish and the gambling was tolerated. By the late 1930s there were a handful of houses. By 1962, the peak, there were close to thirty — a floating neighbourhood with names like the Quarterdeck Club, Calvert Club, the Bikini Club. Senators visited. Pilots flew over to wave.
Hurricane Donna hit in 1960 and knocked down some. Betsy in 1965 took more. Then in 1992, Hurricane Andrew came in directly on top of them and destroyed all but seven.
Those seven survived because of luck and pilings. They are: A. Fisher (the oldest, 1933), Baldwin-Sessions, Bay Chateau, Ellenburg, Hicks, Jimmy Ellenburg, and Miami Springs Powerboat Club. In 2003 the land beneath them transferred from private leases to Biscayne National Park. They are now managed by a non-profit called the Stiltsville Trust, which restores them slowly, one storm at a time, on grant money and donations. In 2014 they were listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
What you do
There are three ways to see them, and they’re all different experiences.
The chartered Stiltsville Trust tour — about $95 a person, Saturday and Sunday only, two hours. The Trust owns the only permits to actually enter the houses. The boat docks at one of them, you step onto the porch, you walk through the rooms, you hear the history. This is the only way you legally set foot on Stiltsville. Book through stiltsville.org. They sell out in season — reserve two or three weeks ahead.
Private boat — rent a centre-console or pontoon from Crandon Marina or Matheson Hammock. It’s a 15-20 minute run on calm days. You must stay 100 ft off the houses without a permit. Anchor on the flats, swim, drift, photograph. Bring a sand spike if you have one — the bottom is good holding.
Commercial cruise from Coconut Grove — several operators run sunset cruises that loop past Stiltsville. You don’t get close, you don’t get out, but it’s the cheapest way to see them and it pairs with dinner in the Grove.
Conditions, honestly
The flats are calmest November through April. East wind chops the bay up fast — anything over 15 knots and the photos go grey. Check NOAA for Virginia Key before you commit.
Late afternoon is the shot. The houses face roughly west, so golden-hour light hits the front pilings and the wood goes amber against the green flats. Sunrise works too but the angle is harsher.
No swimming inside the houses, no climbing the pilings, no docking without a permit. Rangers patrol on weekends. Fines are real. The Trust is fighting for these — don’t make their job harder.
Drones: technically allowed (you’re in a national park but Stiltsville is a special-use area with its own rules — check current FAA + park guidance before launching). Keep them well clear of nesting birds and the houses themselves.
What it’s not
Stiltsville is not an abandoned ghost town. People keep saying it is. It isn’t. Each of the seven houses has an active steward, a maintenance schedule, a fundraising line item. The Trust hosts private weddings, art residencies, and donor events out there. The houses are alive — just hard to get into.
It is also not free. There’s no public dock you can walk to. There’s no boardwalk. There’s no entrance gate. If you don’t have a boat or a tour ticket, you see them from a kayak or you don’t see them.
What it IS
It’s surviving Miami eccentricity. The Miami of the 1940s — the one that built bars on stilts because the cops couldn’t reach them, the one that flew floatplanes between islands, the one Susanna Daniel wrote her novel Stiltsville about — that Miami is mostly gone. Replaced by glass condos and a financial district. But two miles off Cape Florida, seven wooden boxes on chicken legs are still there, on a bay so shallow you can stand up next to them, and they look exactly like they did in 1955.
You don’t get many of those in this city anymore.
Practical card
- Where: Biscayne National Park, ~1 mile off Cape Florida, Key Biscayne
- Coordinates: 25.6492, -80.1419
- Permit (interior access): Stiltsville Trust only —
stiltsville.org - Best tour: Stiltsville Trust chartered, Sat/Sun, ~$95, ~2 hr
- Best DIY base: Crandon Marina or Matheson Hammock rentals
- Best season: late October to April (calm water)
- Best time of day: 4 PM to sunset
- Pair with: Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park (lighthouse, beach) + Crandon Park on the same Key Biscayne day
- Read first: Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel (novel, set there)
