There is a quiet argument playing out on Sugarloaf Key this year, and most of it is happening in plain sight. The lodge that has anchored the island since the late 1950s is on the market. The 1929 tower that put Sugarloaf on the map is still lying in the mangroves. And the restaurant that fed three generations of locals is under new ownership. What holds the island together in the meantime is the ordinary weekend, and residents already know where to find it.
The island's anchor just went up for sale
In late January 2026, Sugarloaf Lodge & Marina at 17001 Overseas Highway was listed for $45 million. The site spans nearly 10.6 acres near mile marker 17, with 31 hotel rooms, a marina, pool, tennis courts, and commercial space that includes the restaurant currently leased to South of the Seven. The listing also carries the right to rebuild 24 hotel keys that were lost in Hurricane Wilma in 2005, which puts the asking price at roughly $1.45 million per key if all rights are used, according to The Real Deal.
The lodge was built by the Pennsylvania strip mining company that dredged and developed much of Sugarloaf Key in the late 1950s, with additions in the 1960s. Lloyd and Miriam Good bought it in 1973 and moved their four children to the island to run it. Two generations of that family still hold the property today. Paul Newman drank here. Hunter S. Thompson slept here. The Mid-Century Modern decor in the rooms is not styling; it is what has always been there.
For residents, the practical question is not who buys it but what they preserve. The site is entitled for full redevelopment, which under current setbacks would push any replacement restaurant back from the bay and reshape the waterfront the whole island looks at every evening.
Saturday morning starts at the water
The best-kept paddling secret on Sugarloaf is not a secret to anyone who lives here. Take Sugarloaf Boulevard south from US-1, follow CR 939A for 2.5 miles, and you reach Sammy Creek Landing: a shaded picnic area with covered tables, a hand launch, and enough parking along the right-of-way to make it work on a busy morning. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission lists it as a stop on the Florida Keys Overseas Paddling Trail, which is itself a leg of the Florida Circumnavigational Saltwater Paddling Trail.
Two things make this launch different from the marina up the road. First, the gates stay closed to trailered power boats, which keeps the creek quiet enough to hear a mangrove cuckoo. Second, the trailhead beyond the yellow gate on CR 939A doubles as a walking and cycling route through rockland hammock, where Key deer and the Lower Keys marsh rabbit turn up in early light. Restored native planting at the landing itself brings in butterflies through the warmer months.
From the creek, the Saddlebunch Keys open up to the south and American Shoal Lighthouse sits on the horizon for anyone willing to make the crossing. Most weekends, a two-hour loop through the flats and mangrove tunnels is plenty.
A note on the Bat Tower. The Perky Bat Tower on Bat Tower Road, mile marker 17, has been on the National Register of Historic Places since May 1982. R.C. Perky built it in 1929 to solve a mosquito problem that was scaring off resort guests, spent about $10,000 on plans and bait from Dr. Charles Campbell of Texas, and released a colony of bats that promptly flew away. On September 10, 2017, Hurricane Irma toppled it. Per Wikipedia's entry on the tower, a decision on repair or re-erection had not been made as of the last public discussion. Residents who want to see it before any restoration should know it is barricaded and not open to the public.
Wednesdays at the market, weekdays at the counter
The Sugarloaf Farmers Market operates at 17075 Overseas Highway on Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., a short hop north of the lodge and sharing an address with South of the Seven. On any given Wednesday the tables carry local produce, honey, fresh bread, sushi cut to order, and conch or shrimp ceviche pulled together on site. It is small enough that regulars know the vendors by first name and large enough that a full week of dinners can be planned in one loop.
Coffee is its own conversation. Baby's Coffee, about 2.1 miles from the marina, has been the default morning stop for Lower Keys residents for years. It is the kind of place where the drive back to the house takes longer than the wait for the pour.
A short checklist of the spots this post assumes you already half know:
- Sammy Creek Landing — Old State Road 4A / CR 939A, Lower Sugarloaf. Hand launch, picnic tables, restrooms, limited parking.
- Sugarloaf Farmers Market — 17075 Overseas Highway, Wednesdays 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
- Baby's Coffee — mile marker 15, Saddlebunch side.
- Sugarloaf Marina — 17015 Overseas Highway, daily 7:30 a.m.–6 p.m.; kayak rentals and a launch for a fee.
- Skydive Key West — 5 Bat Tower Road, daily 9 a.m.–5 p.m., operating out of Sugarloaf Shores Airport.
Where dinner still belongs to the locals
Mangrove Mama's at 19991 Overseas Highway, mile marker 20, is the closest thing the island has to an institution that isn't a lighthouse. The buildings that house the restaurant were constructed between 1905 and 1912 as a rail stop and station-agent residence for Flagler's Overseas Railway, and they survived the 1935 Labor Day hurricane that erased the railway itself, according to the restaurant's own history. The Bell family opened the restaurant in 1979 and locals named it after Gary Bell's fishing skiff, which usually sat out front. A father-son team from Canton, Ohio took over in March 2019, and the kitchen has changed hands again in the years since. Regulars will tell you the menu is different now. The cracked conch, shrimp St. Jacques, conch chowder, and key lime pie remain the reasons to sit down. The patio tikibar and the boat stage are newer additions worth the visit on live-music nights.
South of the Seven, the tenant restaurant at the lodge site at 17075 Overseas Highway, is open Tuesday through Saturday, 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. It reads more upscale than the tiki-bar template most of the Keys leans on, and its future is tied to whatever the lodge becomes. If you have been meaning to make a reservation, this is the year to do it.
For an unfussy pre-sunset drink, the tiki bar at Sugarloaf Marina at 17015 Overseas Highway still delivers what most visitors are hoping to find twenty miles up the road at four times the price.
The quieter thing that makes it work
Sugarloaf Key runs from mile marker 15.8 at the Lower Sugarloaf Channel bridge to mile marker 20.2 at Bow Channel, per the Florida Guidebook, roughly five miles of Overseas Highway split into an Upper and a Lower section by Sugarloaf Sound. Upper Sugarloaf holds most of the commercial addresses. Lower Sugarloaf holds most of the reasons to slow down.
That geography is the reason the island feels the way it does. The businesses residents rely on are clustered on a single stretch of highway, and everything else, including the paddling launches, the Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge to the north, and the Saddlebunch Keys to the south, is water and hammock. The lodge sale will move a large piece of the built environment. The kitchen at Mangrove Mama's will keep evolving. The Bat Tower's fate is still an open question. What does not move is the Wednesday market at 10 a.m., the tide at Sammy Creek, and the light at the marina at 7:15 p.m. in July.
That is the argument for staying put through a year of change: the anchor businesses can turn over, and the island itself still runs on a very old schedule.
If you own on Sugarloaf Key and want a considered read on how the lodge sale, the redevelopment rights, and the broader Lower Keys market are shaping property values on your stretch of the highway, Lisa Swanson is happy to talk. Get Your Instant Home Valuation at lisaswanson.com/home-valuation.
