THE RISE AND FALL OF THE COCOLOBO CAY CLUB

Private Venue Saw New Owners And Ravaging Storms

only local fishing legend to serve as a fishing guide at the club. The Jones brothers were also legendary figures around the local waters. They grew up in the northern Keys, where their family owned several of the islands, including Porgy Key, where the two boys lived. Lancelot and Arthur were skilled fishermen who knew the local waters as well as they knew each other. In addition to catching fish for sport, the brothers fished commercially, harvesting lobster and stone crab they supplied to the Cocolobo Cay Club.

In the late 1920s, the prestigious and private Cocolobo Cay Club boasted 46 members. In 1929, Black Tuesday arrived, the stock market crashed, and hard times fell on the club’s members, some of whom stopped paying their dues. Garfield “Gar” Wood, who made his money in truck and tractor manufacturing but made his reputation as a champion speed boat racer, bought the property in 1934 after it fell on hard times.

In 1935, the Jones brothers began working for the club’s new owner. While Wood operated the club, Lancelot and Arthur Jones worked on the club’s docks and used their considerable knowledge of the local waters to guide its members. According to Lancelot Jones, his clientele included Daniel Topping, who once owned the New York Yankees; and presidents Herbert Hoover, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon – though some of those men fished at the club before being elected.

Wood owned Adams Key and the Cocolobo Cay Club for longer than Carl Fisher and his investors, but Fisher and the club’s heyday are the years for which it is best remembered. Wood, however, was not the island’s last private owner. He sold his interest in Adams Key to a group of men headed by a long-time friend of

Richard Nixon, Bebe Rebozo, in 1953. The club continued to operate with Rebozo at the helm for a time, but the sun had already begun to set on the Cocolobo Cay Club.

In early September 1965, Hurricane Betsy came barreling toward South Florida. On Sept. 8, the Category 3 storm blew across Key Largo. In the northern Keys, wind and storm surge inundated the islands. While Adams Key, with an elevation of 16 feet, withstood the surge, the powerful winds damaged the clubhouse and other buildings on the island. However, Betsy’s were not the only winds of change blowing across the northern Keys. There was also talk of the government creating the Biscayne National Monument, the precursor to Biscayne National Park.

One of the Cocolobo Cay Club’s former visitors, President Lyndon B. Johnson, signed the bill that created the monument on Oct. 18, 1968. On July 15, 1969, rangers from the park service visited Adams Key and noted that the island’s buildings remained badly damaged from the 1965 hurricane. Rebozo ended up selling Adams Key to the government and did so for a handsome profit. When it came time to sign the paperwork, the initial sale price of $500,000, a number already above the market value for the island, was scratched out, and a new number was written in. The final price for Adams Key was $550,000.

The old, dilapidated club that once catered to the nation’s elite burned down on Dec. 21, 1974. Some of the club’s auxiliary buildings, including the caretaker’s residence and the “casino” building used by members for cards and other games, were rehabilitated by the park service, but were destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Today, the island serves as a picnic area in Biscayne National Park.