Sunday, April 28, 2024

Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum, Key West, Florida Homes, History and People

hemingway house

There are so many cats at Hemingway Home that the museum has its own veterinarian to care for them. Unfortunately, cats do not live forever, but you can pay your respects at the Cat Cemetery behind the house. As I was reading the plaque in the cemetery, I noticed that many of the cats were named after famous people. Charlie Chaplin, Emily Dickenson, Mark Twain and Marilyn Monroe were all cats that lived at the Hemingway house. The pool has a mammoth 80,784 gallon capacity, and at the time of installation there was no fresh running water in Key West. Accordingly, in 1938, pool construction involved drilling down to the salt-water table and installing a water pump to retrieve salt water to fill the pool.

Modern museum

Key West’s biggest darling, Ernest Hemingway, lived in this gorgeous Spanish Colonial house from 1931 to 1940. Papa moved here in his early 1930s with his second wife, a Vogue fashion editor and (former) friend of his first wife (he left the house when he ran off with his third wife). The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and The Green Hills of Africa were produced here, as well as many cats, whose descendants basically run the grounds.

from ernest hemingway posted in literature

It was on the advice of John Dos Passos, a fellow member of the “Lost Generation” of ex-patriate artists and writers populating Paris during the 1920s, that Hemingway was first prompted to visit Key West. Hemingway did not go directly to South Florida from Paris, but rather arrived through Havana, Cuba—a city and country that would prove to be critically important in Hemingway’s later personal and professional life. Upon his arrival in Key West in April 1928, the first order of business was to locate the new Ford Roadster that Pauline Hemingway’s wealthy Uncle Gus had so generously purchased for the newlywed couple. Hemingway and his wife left Cuba in 1960, following Fidel Castro’s overthrow of the Batista government (although the left-leaning Hemingway’s sympathies were with the revolutionaries). In ill health and increasingly suffering from the depression that ran through his family, and which he had struggled against all his life, Hemingway settled in Idaho. On July 2, 1961, he shot himself in his Ketchum home and died, aged 61.

Nearby Key West attractions

I describe my travel style as "laid back luxe" and enjoy a mix of outdoor adventures and historic sites. He purchased the property, which by then had been boarded up and abandoned, for $8,000 in back taxes owed to the city. The Hemingway house was originally owned by Asa Tift, a marine architect and captain, who built the house in 1851. As of 2024, visiting the hallowed ground that belonged to this celebrated author will cost $18 for adults and $7 for kids.

The Hemingway house was bought at a silent auction for $80,000 by Bernice Dixon, a local business owner. She lived in the main home until 1964, when she moved into the guest house and turned Hemingway’s home into a museum. Visitors to Key West are keen on seeing the house where Ernest Hemingway, one of America’s most respected novelists, lived and wrote for nine years.

revealing takeaways from the BTS biography ‘Beyond the Story’

On the wall of his home, a neat though cluttered house close to a cluster of small churches, the photo is displayed prominently. It shows a young Ellis with broad shoulders, huge arms and a massive chest, who looks like he might have given Mike Tyson a good fight. In 1940, when Ernest and Pauline divorced and he subsequently married Martha Gelhorn (whom he’d met at Sloppy Joe’s,) they relocated to Cuba and bought Finca Vigia (Lookout Farm) the home on a hilltop overlooking Havana. Pilar was docked at Cojimar, a small fishing village east of Havana, which was the inspiration for Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. Returning to Key West from an African safari in 1934, Ernest Hemingway stopped off in New York to take a few meetings.

hemingway house

The two-story house was built in 1851 of native limestone in a Spanish colonial style by noted marine salvager Asa Tift. Pfeiffer’s wealthy uncle bought the then-derelict house as a wedding present for her and Hemingway in 1931, and the couple had the entire interior restored. The second story of the coach house in the back was made into a writing studio for Hemingway. The swimming pool, built in 1938 as a present from Pfeiffer to her husband, was the first residential swimming pool built in Key West.

hemingway house

I think that had a lot to do with the amount of people that were there. A cruise ship was in town that day, so there was a constant flow of visitors through the house. This lovely Key West home is where legendary author Ernest Hemingway lived and worked for more than ten years.

More From the Los Angeles Times

WCSO investigating deadly shooting at Hemingway home, suspects at large - WCBD News 2

WCSO investigating deadly shooting at Hemingway home, suspects at large.

Posted: Mon, 11 Sep 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

He quickly became obsessed with deep-water fishing, and soon bought his own boat, the Pilar. "Papa" Hemingway, as he’d dubbed himself, took to sailing the nearby waters with friends in tow, who were soon nicknamed the Key West Mob. A few weeks ago, she returned once again to L.A., the city that had spurned her so many times. She took the studio apartment in Santa Monica and began working to reclaim the old magic. Infamously, nobody on a low-salt diet is in a position to take Hellman’s word for anything.

Soon after arrival, Hemingway made the acquaintance of Charles Thompson, who ran the local hardware store. Charles Thompson introduced Hemingway to the exciting world of big game sport fishing, and a long friendship was born. Charles and his wife Lorine entertained the Hemingways at their home on Fleming Street. Lorine Thompson proved to be as friendly and gracious as her husband Charles, and it was during those early days in Key West she and Pauline forged a friendship that would endure for the rest of their lives. Both Ernest and Pauline grew to love Key West and its inhabitants, and soon decided to look for a permanent residence. After two seasons in Key West, Pauline’s Uncle Gus purchased the house on Whitehead Street for them in 1931.

Upon his departure from Key West, the captain presented the cat to Hemingway. Today many of the numerous cats that inhabit the grounds still possess the unusual six toes. Several years earlier, he’d met journalist Martha Gellhorn while she was vacationing in Key West. Pfeiffer would remain in the Key West home until her death in 1951, and the house would later be sold by the Hemingway sons after their father’s death. As he had been in Key West, Hemingway seemed inspired by his new surroundings, writing works such as For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, and receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

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