Look closely enough and you’ll see that without green and white, Key West’s magical historic district would be a hodgepodge of architectural design abominations shoved cheek by jowl onto tiny parcels of land in what can only loosely be called “mixed use” planning.

You’ve got a gas station next to a multimillion-dollar residence. A church next to a restaurant. A circa-1950 concrete block house abutting a two-story 1880s historic landmark home. In short, for 200 years with few zoning restrictions, Key West built what needed building where it could be squeezed in with nary a nod to esthetics.

And then, because that looked pretty awful, we planted green stuff and painted things white. Houses, offices, government buildings, garages, retail stores — and picket fences. The chaotic construction hid nicely behind the green and white and we’ve looked darn good ever since.

By the Great Depression, Key West was figuring out that its charming historic architecture could lure tourists and it spent the next couple decades puttering around the edges of a nascent preservation movement. White paint was cheap, weathered natural wood added gentle contrast and, well, green grew.

In 1968, when the architecturally significant Convent of Mary Immaculate was demolished, the preservation activists finally had enough traction to slow the more-development-is-better folks from turning Key West into a subtropical version of Marco Island or Miami. In 1983, Key West’s expanded historic district made it onto the National Registry of Historic Places. And in 1986, the original guardian of Key West’s architecture, the Old Island Restoration Commission, became today’s Historic Architectural Review Commission.

HARC. Four letters that can inspire an inappropriate level of swearing, sighing, plan-changing and hand-wringing, while at the same time it engenders an appreciation for the gawdawful task of balancing the city’s architectural heritage with modern “conveniences,” such as hurricane shutters, impact-resistant windows and flood protection.

That brings me back to those white picket fences, which play an outsized role in preserving the look and feel of Key West. HARC has a long list of fence rules, and one of the biggies is this: Pickets must be white or natural wood. It’s one of the few HARC regulations that doesn’t come with a lot of caveats or exceptions.

Rainbow fences | A brilliant example of resistance

Last September when Florida’s anti-LGBTQ administration destroyed rainbow crosswalks across the state under the guise of “safety,” including ours at Duval and Petronia, Key West residents painted rainbow-colored pickets. We did so knowing full well it wouldn’t take long before HARC couldn’t turn a blind eye to the colorful fences sprouting in the historic district. Someone was going to get their drawers in a knot — either because the painted pickets were noncompliant or because the LGBTQ Pride message gave them heartburn, which is, of course, exactly what happened.

More than three dozen complaints have been filed, all from three people whose motives, based on past performance, so to speak, are less about compliance than about politics. Now HARC and the city face a no-win choice: Enforce the HARC white pickets rule or get rid of it and let us paint our fences whatever colors we want.

HARC and the city are trying to find a compromise, a laudable, if likely futile, endeavor. Let everyone paint seven pickets any color they want. Let folks apply for an inexpensive permit for a temporary picket-painting. Instead of paint, wrap the pickets. But who’s going to count the pickets? Who’s going to decide to which colors the First Amendment applies? When do colors shift from love to hate speech?

Painting pickets is a brilliant example of political resistance and I love the rainbow pops of color. I’d like them even if I didn’t agree with the Pride message they send. I love the creative resourcefulness of Anne Brodsky, Key West’s “fence fairy,” whose mini-pickets get around the no-color-on-pickets HARC rule with a perfect piece of hanging artwork. (And I love my rainbow cat mailbox.)

But I’d not be so happy to find a swastika or a noose or red MAGA hat painted across seven pickets. I’d not be so happy with fences painted to match purple shutters or hunter green window trim or a fence painted in the University of Florida’s orange and blue.

Key West’s white picket fences have become irrevocably part of our historical heritage. Fly the flag, paint the mailbox, hang mini-pickets, knit a rainbow sweater for the concrete rooster. Keep the pickets white. And plant some native green stuff. At the very least, we need the white and green to minimize the architectural clutter.