Key Royale may be one of the last remaining residential bastions on the increasingly tourism-driven Anna Maria Island.
And it all started with a Minnesota man’s vision.
Peder Mickelson, a Minnesota resident and developer who regularly visited the island, purchased the 150-acre School Key for $25,000 in the early 1950s from Oscar Russell.
Mickelson began platting the key for development and, in 1957, renamed it Key Royale when the first of his plans were approved by the city of Holmes Beach.
A bridge to Key Royale also was built that same year.
Mickelson sold model homes on the key with prices in 1963 ranging from $15,490-$15,800 for nonwaterfront homes and $16,680-$25,850 for waterfront homes.
The Key Royale Resident Owners Association was formed in 1967 to oversee the blossoming community.
Today, Key Royale includes 320 platted lots, the island’s only golf course and numerous finger canals.
The key also features a new entrance sign visible upon crossing the humpback bridge on Key Royale Drive.
The sign — designed and created by Naples-based Lykins Signtek — was installed in late September after a permit for its construction unanimously passed through the city commission in July.
Several members from the KRROA board of directors christened the sign Oct. 31 with a toast and flutes of Champagne.
One of those members — Fran Derr — told The Islander Nov. 24 that she’d seen the island change a lot since she purchased her home on Dundee Lane for $125,000 in 1983.
Derr said that while the rest of the island’s residential community shrank due to increasing tourism and vacation rental properties, Key Royale remained strong.
She boasted that the community includes 45 residents among several families under the age of 18 years old.
“It’s a family area,” Derr said. “Key Royale has a sense of community.”
Derr partly credited the KRROA’s efforts in contacting new residents for the tight-knit nature.
She also gave credit for the community’s residential standard to the city’s long-established zoning categories that prohibit vacation rental stays of less than 30 days in R1 and R1-AA zones — which cover all the homes in Key Royale.