Modern-Day Gilligan's Island In Key West Saved By An Obscure Law

http://www.businessinsider.com/battle-for-wisteria-island-2012-12



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Over the past four decades, it seems like just about everyone has used the island except its acknowledged owners: the Bernsteins, a well-to-do family with New York roots who developed most of nearby Stock Island. "We kind of ignored it," Roger Bernstein said.

But in 2007, Bernstein and his brother, Jordan, decided it was time to turn their "trophy property" into a luxury resort. Those who loved the scruffy island -- created during a Navy channel-dredging project around the turn of the last century -- had other ideas.

Among them were Naja and Arnaud Girard, who own a Key West marine assistance and boat salvage company. The couple have fond memories of their two children playing on the island with kids from other live-aboard families who grew up on boats anchored off its shore.

The Girards started poking around Washington, D.C., archives and online databases, trying to find a way to keep at least some of the island undeveloped. They hit the jackpot: documents that suggested the Bernsteins could not own the island because the Navy had not given up title to Wisteria until 1982. And, when it did, it transferred it to the U.S. Department of the Interior, not the state of Florida.


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