Key Biscayne luxury looked different back when. Take a look

What do you think of when you hear “Key Biscayne?”

Luxury condos? Mansions? Teniis and the beach?

Decades ago, Key Biscayne felt more like small seaside town. Low-slung hotels along the waterfront. Modest homes built in the 1950s. A quaint main business strip with its own bank.

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Luxury in a different time.

Once the home to Tequesta Indians, pirates and coconut plantations, the island was linked to the mainland in 1947 by the Rickenbacker Causeway, triggering a building boom of 553 homes built by the Mackle brothers and the Key Biscayne Hotel, which opened in 1952.

President Richard Nixon, who maintained a winter White House complex there, spent a lot of time in Key Biscayne as the Watergate scandal unfolded.

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Let’s travel back in time to the Key Biscayne of yesterday, and leaf through the photo archives of the Miami Herald:

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This story was originally published August 11, 2026 at 3:08 PM.