December 5 - Artist Henry Faulkner Dies at the Hands of a Drunk Driver - a podcast by 43 Keys Media

Today's nugget of Key West history comes to us from a blog post by artist, Anja Marais. I'm living on a quaint lane in Old Town Key West for the last six years in a wooden Victorian house. My first impression walking in as a tenant to be was the good feeling that just oozed out of the Dade County pine

standing strong like a ship on land. It already embarked on a journey a long time ago, and I just happened to board on one of its many pit stops. I would come across small odd clues and reminisces hidden and cradled in would have forgotten ghost and on an Easter hot I started collecting questions. Why is there different layers of bright neon green paint under the door Brown, fresh painted fours? Why is there a photo of a man with a goat staring at me from its buckled copper friend?

Why is this house full of antique gaudy Italian carved mirrors with crumbling flying cherubs?

This is how I got acquainted with Henry fault, his art and his flagrant life.

Henry fault now was born in Egypt, Kentucky, into a sad childhood that has the makings of an Edgar Allan Poe tale. From a volatile Father to the slow death of his Mother his sensitive nature was formed and overcast by becoming an orphan dumped into the welfare system moving from one to the other foster family. He even had a foster mother in remote Appalachia that treated him like a girl that she rather wanted. His adult life was peppered with debilitating incidents like being mugged with a hammer as an adult, with a blow to the head discrimination against being gay. That included slurs and beatings and after all these sets, any other human might have sunk into self pity, but not Henry, his insecurities and pain poured like a syrup into manifestations of poetry, art and a flamboyant lifestyle.

He became best friends with Tennessee Williams, the Bertolt Brecht, family, and befriended Ernest Hemingway. In his Key West days, he became the life and heartbeat of many parties and art gatherings. He also became the savior of the outcast, and forgotten any animal that he could find abandoned and tortured. He will rescue and become part of his own bizarre family that included Alice the goat. The rumor goes that he had painted the floors in the house green so that Alice could feel more at home galloping through the pastures.

He wrote numerous poetry and was a prolific painter. Currently his house is in the Bertolt Brecht family trust, since his son Stephen and Henry Faulkner were good friends. We are the temporary careful takers of this property. It is one of the last untouched houses in Key West that stayed exactly the same for the last five decades without any additions or changes. It still has a will on the yard and the kitchen is separate from the house built to prevent the spread of fire. There's even a couple of movies shot in the house like criss cross with building hone in 1992. Okay, well, let's just say that wasn't the greatest movie ever.

I was told by a neighbor that has lived on the lane his whole life that Henry thought and Tennessee Williams had major parties. The two would sit on the front balcony and some Navy sailors would parade down the lane and only the selected ones were allowed to enter to join the party. No wonder this house has good vibes. I cringe for the day that this house will be turned into the rest of key West's now sterile "meringue cake" houses that are buff and overly manicured by rich out of towners.

But for now enjoy the character of old Key West the days of poets, hippies, and famous riders. When I work in my studio, I feel a solidarity almost as if Henry is peeking over my shoulder with that sweet Mona Lisa smile of his it was today December 5 in 1981 that artists Henry Faulkner was killed in a car crash in his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. He was killed by a drunk driver. Faulkner spent many years as a winter resident at Key West and that's what happened today in Key West history.

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