Shel Silverstein’s Key West House and the Banyan That Fell on It

When Hurricane Irma came through Key West in September 2017, a banyan tree came down on 618 William Street. The house under it, a two-story wooden place built in 1901, had belonged to Shel Silverstein, the man who wrote The Giving Tree. The damage was bad enough that the house was condemned, taken down and rebuilt as a replica.

More Than Children’s Books

Silverstein drew cartoons, wrote plays and wrote songs. Johnny Cash recorded his “A Boy Named Sue,” and at the 1970 Grammys Silverstein won Best Country Song for it. Most people know him for the children’s books: Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic and The Giving Tree, which have sold tens of millions of copies.

Key West

He bought the William Street house in the 1980s and kept it as one of several homes, joining a town that had drawn writers and artists since Hemingway’s day. He died there on May 10, 1999, at 68.

What stands at 618 William Street in Old Town today is the replica.