A morning on Whitehead Street
The Audubon House in Key West is a museum at 205 Whitehead Street, a white wooden house of the 1840s with a garden of palms and orchids around it, named for the painter who worked on the island in 1832. On 10 December 2024 we spent a morning there. Our guide welcomed us at the door and took us through the house room by room, with the history of John James Audubon and of the house itself, and she knew both well.
The rooms are furnished as they would have been in the nineteenth century, with antique furniture and household objects, and the tour ends on the upper balcony, looking out over the garden. It is a quiet place, a few streets from the harbour, and the garden alone is worth the visit.
Audubon in Key West, 1832
Audubon came to Key West in the spring of 1832, on his Florida expedition, and drew several of the birds of the island and the Keys there. The Key West Dove of plate 167 is one of them, and the Great White Heron of plate 281 has the roofs of Key West in its background. The house itself was built later, for a harbour pilot and wrecker, and was restored and opened as a museum in 1960 in Audubon’s memory; much of the conversation on our tour was about his smaller works, the plates of the later, reduced-size editions that the house also shows. Who was John James Audubon? tells the rest of his story.
Our facsimiles in the museum shop
The reason for the visit was in the museum shop. It sells our facsimiles of plates from The Birds of America, made from the copy of the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, and the two that visitors ask for most are the American Flamingo of plate 431 and the American White Pelican of plate 311: the two big birds of the Florida coast, each printed at the size of the original sheet. It is a good feeling to see a print that left Almere in a tube hanging in Audubon’s own island.
If you are in Key West, go. If you are not, the same plates are on The Birds of America, and About Heritage Prints tells how we work with museums and with Re-Art Special Art Productions in Almere, who make our prints.
The plates of the Florida coast
Questions
Where is the Audubon House in Key West?
At 205 Whitehead Street, Key West, Florida, a few streets from the harbour. It is a house museum with a tropical garden, named after John James Audubon, who drew birds on the island in 1832.
Can I buy Heritage Prints facsimiles at the Audubon House?
Yes. The museum shop sells our facsimiles of plates from The Birds of America, among them the American Flamingo and the American White Pelican.
Did Audubon live in the Audubon House?
No. He visited Key West in 1832, before the house was built. The house was restored and opened as a museum in 1960 in his memory and shows his work.