Where Does Judy Blume Live in Florida? Inside Her Key West Life
September 21, 2026 · 8 min read · By Onias Derilus, Broker
Judy Blume has lived in Key West since 1995 with her husband George Cooper. The house stays private, but the couple's nonprofit bookstore in Old Town is the most public address in town. Here is what reporting says about her home, the store and why the island suits her.
Where does Judy Blume live? The author of 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret' lives in Key West, Florida, at the far end of the Keys. She and her husband, George Cooper, moved there in 1995, and since 2016 they have run a nonprofit bookstore in the island's Old Town. The house itself stays out of the press. The store does not, and most weeks you can find her behind the counter. Here is what public reporting says about her home, her shop and the island she picked.
Key takeaways
- Blume lives in Key West, Monroe County, at the southern tip of the Florida Keys. She and Cooper have lived there since 1995.
- The purchase price was not reported. A local gallery has described the house as a midcentury home with a large garden, but no major outlet has covered it.
- Her public address is Books and Books at The Studios of Key West, a 1,200-square-foot nonprofit store the couple opened in February 2016.
- Key West is outside our market. The closest South Florida match for an old walkable island neighborhood is Coconut Grove in Miami.
Where does Judy Blume live in Florida?
Blume lives in Key West, the last island on the Overseas Highway, about 160 miles southwest of Miami. It is closer to Havana than to Miami. Key West sits in Monroe County, which is not one of the eight counties Pure Equity serves. We cover it because the search interest is real.
The move dates to 1995, according to a profile of Cooper on the Authors Guild site and a 2020 American Red Cross release that honored the couple. Cooper had taught law at Columbia University in New York. Blume was already one of the best-selling children's authors alive. They chose a small island with a long literary history, and they stayed.
Where in Key West is the house? Reporting does not say, and Pure Equity does not publish private addresses. What is public is the store: Books and Books at The Studios of Key West, in a three-story 1950s former Masonic temple in Old Town, the historic district that covers the island's western end.
Key West has a habit of collecting writers. Ernest Hemingway lived there in the 1930s, Tennessee Williams for decades after, and the island still trades on both. WLRN, the South Florida public radio station, wrote in 2023 that the bookstore had become a Key West destination on the order of the Hemingway house.
Inside the reported Key West home
Very little has been reported about the house, which seems to be the point. Blume gives interviews about her books and her store, not her kitchen. No sale price, square footage or year of construction has appeared in an outlet we trust.
The one description we found comes from Archeo Gallery, a Key West rug and furniture dealer that has worked with the couple. Its blog describes a midcentury home with a big garden, furnished with gabbeh rugs, village furniture and African stools. That is a vendor's account, so treat it as color rather than fact.
It does fit the island. Key West's Old Town is mostly 19th-century wood conch houses, but midcentury homes are common in the neighborhoods that grew up after the Navy expanded during World War II. Either way, the house is a private matter and we leave it there.
The bookstore that put her on the map in Key West
Books and Books at The Studios of Key West opened in February 2016. Publishers Weekly visited two months later and found Blume dusting shelves. 'I never knew there was so much work to do,' she told the magazine. 'I never knew about dusting.' She called herself Miss Bossypants and said the whole thing felt like a fantasy.
The store is 1,200 square feet and runs as a nonprofit inside The Studios, an arts center with galleries, classes and artist residencies. It is an affiliate of Books and Books, the Coral Gables independent founded by Mitchell Kaplan. Cooper arranged the space and the nonprofit structure, and he is the store's chief financial officer, per Publishers Weekly.
Cooper had already helped build the island's cultural life. Before the bookstore he helped found the Tropic Cinema, the independent movie theater a short walk away, according to the Books and Books site. The Red Cross honored the couple in 2020 for that work.
Why Judy Blume chose Key West
Blume has never given a long public explanation for the move, so we stick to what the record shows. The couple arrived in 1995, when she was in her late fifties and past the peak of her publishing schedule. Key West offered warm winters, a walkable town and a community of writers and artists. It also offered distance from the attention that came with her name.
That distance shrank in 2023. The film of 'Margaret' and the documentary 'Judy Blume Forever' put her back in the news at 85, and the store became a pilgrimage site. She told WLRN, with a smile, 'I have no private life anymore.' But she said it from Key West, and she kept showing up at the shop.
Where else does Judy Blume live?
Publishers Weekly noted in 2016 that the couple does not stay in Key West year-round. Blume has long spent summers on Martha's Vineyard, the Massachusetts island where she set her novel 'Summer Sisters,' and she kept a New York base for years after Cooper left Columbia. Neither outlet we relied on names a current second home or a price, so we do not.
What the record shows is a clear pattern. Key West is home, the bookstore is the anchor, and the summers go north. She turned 88 in February 2026.
What homes near Judy Blume cost
Key West is outside our MLS coverage, so we do not have live pricing for the island and we will not quote figures we cannot verify. Our data-driven Monroe County page shows what our feed carries for the Keys.
For a South Florida reader, the closest equivalent to Old Town Key West is Coconut Grove in Miami. The Grove is the oldest continuously inhabited neighborhood in Miami-Dade, with a walkable village center, old trees, an arts scene and a bayfront. Our feed shows about 57 active listings there with a median list price near $3.25 million, as of September 2026.
A second option is El Cid in West Palm Beach, a 1920s historic district of Mediterranean and mission-style homes on the Intracoastal. West Palm Beach as a whole has about 2,200 active listings with a median near $310,000, so El Cid sits well above the city median. Compare both on the Miami-Dade County page and our waterfront homes hub.
Frequently asked questions
Where does Judy Blume live now?
She lives in Key West, Florida, with her husband George Cooper. The couple has lived there since 1995 and runs the nonprofit bookstore Books and Books at The Studios of Key West.
Where in Key West does Judy Blume live?
Reporting does not name the neighborhood, and Pure Equity does not publish private addresses. Her bookstore is in Old Town, the historic district at the western end of the island, and that is the public place to find her.
Where does Judy Blume live full time?
Key West is her primary home. Publishers Weekly has reported that the couple does not stay year-round, and she has long spent summers on Martha's Vineyard.
How much did Judy Blume pay for the Key West home?
The price was not reported. The couple bought in 1995, before most Keys sales drew press attention, and no outlet has published a figure since.
Is Key West part of South Florida?
Geographically, yes. Monroe County is the southernmost county in the state, and the Keys are usually grouped with South Florida. But it is not one of the eight counties Pure Equity serves, which run from Miami-Dade north to Indian River and inland to Okeechobee and Highlands.
Can you meet Judy Blume at the bookstore?
Often. She works shifts at Books and Books at The Studios of Key West and has done so since it opened in 2016. The store does not publish her schedule, so there is no guarantee on any given day.
If you own a home in Coconut Grove, El Cid or anywhere in Miami-Dade or Palm Beach County and want to know what it is worth today, get a free home valuation from Pure Equity. Buyers can browse Coconut Grove listings or see luxury homes across South Florida. For another Keys resident, read where Jimmy Johnson lives in Islamorada, and see our roundup of celebrities who live in Florida.
Sources
- Publishers Weekly, Judy Blume, Bookseller
- WLRN, Judy Blume, on top of the world (and her Key West bookstore)
- American Red Cross, Red Cross will honor Judy Blume and George Cooper at the 2020 Spottswood Gala
- Books and Books, Visit us in Key West
Based on publicly reported information; details may change and are not independently verified by Pure Equity. We do not publish private addresses.
