Stiltsville

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Stiltsville is a group of wood stilt houses standing on pilings in the shallow water of Biscayne Bay in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Originally built during the prohibition era to facilitate gambling, this grouping of small vacation homes and weekend buildings numbered as high as 27 in 1960. The part of the bay that the buildings were sited in was turned over to the National Park Service in 1985. Following the destructive force of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, only seven buildings remained intact. These remaining buildings were still periodically inhabited and under private leases until 1999.

These now-dilapidated structures are now within the boundaries of Biscayne National Park, and are currently off-limits to casual visitors. The Park Service has established the Stiltsville Trust to restore the structures and eventually open them for park use. Stiltsville has been the setting for scenes in the novels Skin Tight and Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen, and an episode of Miami Vice.

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Coordinates: 25°39′13″N 80°10′18″W / 25.653539, -80.171517