Old Road Gallery

Old Road Gallery sits at 88888 Old Highway, mile marker 88.8, and it is the home and working studio of Dwayne and Cindy King. They are the resident artists, not a name over a door, and the gallery is built around what they make: handcrafted pottery, bronze and copper sculpture, ceramic work, copper wall hangings, and the useful things too, plates and mugs and trivets. They also carry work by other Keys artists, so the shelves are not a single sensibility.

The part that makes this different from a shop is the workshop attached to the gallery, where you can watch the Kings actually working. Bronze casting and wheel-thrown pottery are both processes that look like nothing you would guess from the finished object, and being able to stand there while it happens is the kind of thing people remember from a trip long after they have forgotten what they bought.

Then there is the garden. The property is planted in tropical hardwood with winding footpaths running through it, sculpture placed along the way, seating where you can stop, and, wandering through all of it, free-range peacocks and chickens. It is a genuinely pleasant place to spend twenty minutes doing nothing, which is not something most galleries can offer, and it is free to walk.

Old Road Gallery holds a Tripadvisor Travelers' Choice award and currently ranks in the top ten of forty-odd things to do in Islamorada on that site, which for a small owner-run gallery sitting among charter boats and state parks is a real achievement. It keeps daytime hours, roughly ten to five, so it is an afternoon stop rather than an evening one.