The Rinehart Era

Alan and Gratia Rinehart: The Winter Home That Became Cabbage Key Inn

Long before its walls were covered with dollar bills and boaters arrived for cheeseburgers and drinks, the building we know today as the Cabbage Key Inn and Restaurant was the private winter home of Alan and Gratia Rinehart.

In 1936, the couple purchased the largely undeveloped island then known as Palmetto Key. Alan was the son of celebrated mystery novelist and journalist Mary Roberts Rinehart, whose visits to nearby Useppa Island helped introduce the family to Pine Island Sound. Gratia came from another prominent American family: she was an heiress to the Houghton family fortune associated with Corning Glass Works.

The Rineharts envisioned an elaborate winter retreat overlooking the waters of Pine Island Sound.

They hired respected Fort Myers architect Nat Walker to design the estate. Construction began in 1936, and by the spring of 1937 the island had been transformed. The completed estate included a roughly 4,500-square-foot main residence, cottages, boathouse and docks, powerhouse, and a remarkable 6,000-gallon wooden water tower that still stands today.

The six-bedroom house was positioned atop an ancient Calusa shell midden, approximately 33 feet above sea level. Large screened porches and an irregular floor plan were deliberately designed to capture the prevailing breezes in an era before air conditioning. Inside were six fireplaces, a large kitchen, dining and living rooms, staff quarters and expansive porches.

The Rineharts also built a small waterfront playhouse for their daughters, Gratia and Patricia—known as Topsy and Patsy. Today it survives as Cabbage Key's Dollhouse Cottage.

But their island dream was tragically brief.

Alan and Gratia divorced in 1938. Alan transferred his interest in Palmetto Key to Gratia for $18,000, leaving her the island's sole owner. She planned to continue using the estate as a winter retreat for herself, her daughters and friends.

She never had the opportunity.

On May 24, 1939, Gratia Rinehart died of breast cancer at only 34 years old, leaving behind her two young daughters. The magnificent island home was closed and eventually placed on the market.

For several years it sat largely silent and furnished, awaiting another chapter.

That chapter arrived in 1944, when Larry and Jan Stults purchased Palmetto Key and transformed the Rineharts' private residence into an island inn.

Nearly ninety years after it was built, the Rinehart family's winter home remains the heart of Cabbage Key—a remarkable house whose brief life as a private estate became the foundation for one of Southwest Florida's most enduring island landmarks.