Bernie C. Papy, III Talks About Wisteria Island

Key West The Newspaper talked with Bernie C. Papy, III, grandson of THE Bernie C. Papy, King of the Keys who 61 years ago purchased Wisteria Island from the State of Florida.   Bernie Papy, Sr. a State Representative for 26 years and a character bigger than life, died in 1964 but has by some incredible twist of fate once again taken center stage here in Key West.

According to federal judge Jose Martinez, who presides over the Wisteria ownership dispute, everything could depend on what Representative Papy “knew or should have known” about a Navy claim to the island when he bought it from the state of Florida in 1952.

“My grandfather was selling property in Miami as early as the 1920’s,” says Bernie C. Papy , III, who like his ancestor is in the real estate business.

That was during the real estate boom after World War I when moving to Florida was the most fashionable thing a New Yorker could do.  It was the time of “binders”, when the price of property options would double in a week.  It was the bubble of all bubbles, when so much money was diverted to Florida that banks up north were complaining of being sucked dry of all their cash.  It was the time before the crash of 1929 that interestingly started, just like the more recent crash, with a Hurricane.  Just like the 2005 hurricane season signaled that the ceiling had been reached in real estate speculation, the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 cooled off the appetite for risky investment.  The resulting collapse of the real estate market cascaded one Tuesday of October 1929 into the infamous Wall Street crash and the beginning of the Great Depression.

Bernie Papy, Sr. lived through all the ups and downs of the Florida Keys economy; the depression era when no one had money, the War, and the rolling economic boom that took Key West by storm in the fifties.

In 1952, the year Papy, Sr. bought Wisteria, all Key West economic indicators were going through the roof.  The local gambling industry hailed him as a champion against the Miami mafia who was trying to keep a hold against competition.  That was the year the “city fathers” as they were called, approved the Dog Track on Stock Island.

“Throughout his life my grandfather was a real estate speculator.  He had deals in the Keys.  He was always involved in speculation and other occupations in addition to his political career.”

So, what did Representative Papy “[know] or should have known” about Wisteria Island in 1952?

“He knew Paul Sawyer, who was an attorney and a distant relative,” says Papy, III,  “He may well have known that there was a proposal to pass the SLA [Submerged Lands Act] to deal with the submerged lands in Florida.”

Today, the SLA is the legal basis supporting Roger Bernstein’s claim to Wisteria Island.  All the parties involved in the case, including Bernstein’s attorney, are now admitting that the 1952 sale to Bernie C. Papy, Sr. was absolutely invalid as the state never owned any of the submerged lands off its coast until the passage of the Submerged Lands Act of 1953.

“The state gave my grandfather a quit claim deed.  It only sold whatever interests the state had at the time,” says Bernie C. Papy, III,   “I’m a broker.  People use those when they are not sure what they really own.  He was speculating.  He took a gamble.  So did the people that bought after him.”

As to whether his grandfather was speculating that he would be able to sell the land to the Navy that wanted to develop it into a fuel depot, Bernie C. Papy, III said,

“He had a good relationship with the Navy.  It would have been political suicide for him to try to rattle the Navy.  I think it was pure speculation for private development.”

But the fact remains that Papy did cross the Navy all the same when he bought the island.  The 1951 and 1952 communications between the state and the Navy on the subject of Wisteria Island are as tense as it gets.  Without Papy’s clout in the Governor’s office, there is little doubt that the state would have halted the sale upon the Navy’s objection.

One thing is for sure, Papy, Sr. was very well connected with the Navy.  His ability to enter any Navy command office in Washington made regular headlines in the Key West Citizen in the 1940’s and 50’s .   Apparently, Bernie Papy, Sr. was instrumental in averting the closure of the base at Boca Chica.  When, Key West ran out of water, Papy helped convince the Navy to build new infrastructure to meet the needs of the civilian population.  And of course, Representative Papy, of all people, would have known of the multi-million dollar redevelopment of Truman Harbor that had been announced in the local paper in 1952.  That particular development included relocation of all Navy fuel tanks to Wisteria Island with a network of pipelines feeding Trumbo Point, the submarine basin and the seaplane basin.

Why is this important?  Because a year later the United States, through the SLA, would transfer all of its spoil islands to the state of Florida.  All except those that the Navy had already developed or were in the process of developing for its own use; islands like Wisteria.  Today, as was the case 60 years ago, the “built-up for its own use” exception to the SLA is the thorn in Roger Bernstein’s ownership claim against the government.   If Papy, Sr. knew of the Navy’s development plans for Wisteria, he also should have known the island could qualify as one of the spoil islands that was not transferred by the SLA.

“My grandfather may have bought the island thinking that the title would be cleared after the passage of the SLA and that he would go back to the State of Florida and get a Warranty Deed after the SLA passed.  As I said, he was speculating.  He took a gamble and so did the people who bought after him.”