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For more than a decade, Ernest Hemingway called Key West home, producing some of his most famous works and immortalizing what had been a somewhat remote stretch of land in southern Florida. Today, his estate is a tourist hotspot, providing visitors with a unique look into the legendary writer’s life. Ernest Hemingway was given a white six-toed cat by a ship’s captain and some of the cats who live on the museum grounds are descendants of that original cat, named Snow White. Key West is a small island and it is possible that many of the cats on the island are related. Wheeler was known and rewarded for producing exceptional hand-crafted wooden boats. He also requested extra-large fuel tanks so he could stay at sea for longer periods of time.
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At one with the editor of Esquire, Arnold Gingrich, Hemingway was given a $3300 advance for some short stories. He promptly took himself out to Coney Island to the Wheeler Shipyard and used the cash as a down payment on a customized yacht. My initial interest in visiting the Hemingway Home was not because I’m a Hemingway fan (I’ve never read anything written by him), but because I love old architecture. I especially have a thing for buildings with wrap around porches and wooden shutters. As you walk around the property, you’ll encounter at least a couple dozen of these kitties.
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The kitten was from a litter of the captain’s cat Snowball, who also had six toes. I thought the house was very pretty on the outside and had a nice lived-in feeling on the inside. There were little imperfections throughout the house like cracks in the ceiling and chips in the walls. Had they been gone, the house would have lost its historic ambiance. For the next ten years, Hemingway used the house as a place to stay during his trips between Cuba and his home in Ketchum, Idaho. When Hemingway died in 1961, his sons agreed to sell the estate.
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During his years in Key West, Hemingway completed about 70% of his works including A Farewell to Arms, Death in the Afternoon and For Whom the Bell Tolls. On a slightly odder level, the estate is also home to over 50 cats, with names like Pablo Picasso, Hairy Truman, and Audrey Hepburn. About half of these cats are polydactyls—animals with extra toes. A ship captain once gave Hemingway a six-toed cat, of whom the writer was extremely fond, and from whom these cats are supposedly descended.
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And sometime last Saturday, or maybe Friday, she entered her apartment and died. We don’t know what the coroner will list as the official cause of death. There are tours of the home, which include a botanical garden and a mineral collection. Some scenes from the movie "A Face in the Crowd," starring Andy Griffith (1956) were filmed here.
After Hemingway’s death in July of that year, his widow gave the ship to Gregorio Fuentes who had served as her captain. Fuentes also served as the basis for the character Santiago, in The Old Man and The Sea and passed away in 2002 at the age of 104. Hemingway’s boys named their new kitten Snow White and as Hemingway once wrote, “one cat just leads to another”. To this day, many of the cats that live at Hemingway Home are descendants of the original Snow White.
A large portion of “A Farewell to Arms” was written at the house and the premiere of the movie version was held in Piggott in 1932. Ernest and Pauline divorced in 1940, Hemingway took up residence in Cuba with his third wife, Martha Gellhorn. He continued to visit Key West during the 40’s and 50’s until death in 1961. Throughout the years, Key West has been home to many writers and artists, but none whose presence and influence is as profound as Ernest Hemingway’s. Because the car had been delayed in transit, the Ford dealership insisted that they take up residence in an apartment located above the showroom on Simonton Street.
Guests who visit the house are taken on minute guided tour of the entire grounds. Famed American author Ernest Hemingway (he’s the dude responsible for For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea) spent a good part of his life living in Key West in this house. Mary was able to return to Finca Vigia to retrieve some of Hemingway’s belongings, but the house itself soon fell into disrepair. It was partially restored and reopened to the public in 2007, and it, along with his Key West home, stand almost frozen in time, testaments to Hemingway’s dramatic and eventful life. Send us an email and one of our staff will receive it in no time. Having flopped with an A-list movie, she tried B-list parts and then the C-list.
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Currently, about 60 cats live on the property, and many are polydactyl, meaning they have six toes on their paws instead of five. The site where the pool is located was formerly the setting of Hemingway’s famous boxing ring, where he would spar with local amateur boxers such as Shine Forbes. Construction of the pool necessitated relocation of the boxing ring to the site now occupied by the Blue Heaven Restaurant on Petronia Street, a few blocks away. The warm waters surrounding Key West seemed to beckon Hemingway.
Though there are pictures of Hemingway on the dock with marlin, Ellis, who considers himself a friend of the writer, claims he never caught one. Ellis’ claim, and some dubious boasts by others, are difficult to confirm because so few islanders remain who were alive or on the island at the time. On this Sunday, Ellis, now a Baptist preacher, is fresh from church and wearing a flowing white clergyman’s robe edged in maroon.
” Whether the story is apocryphal or not, there is a penny embedded in cement at the north end of the pool to memorialize Ernest’s purported outburst. Everyone in The Mob had a nickname, and Hemingway was often referred to by his friends and family during this time was “Papa”—it was a moniker that eventually stuck with him throughout his life. Hemingway’s Key West was a town unlike any place he ever experienced. It was filled with interesting people, ranging from well-to-do businessmen and lawyers, to down-on-their-luck fishermen, to shipwreck salvagers.
Visitors often revel in the small details of the old house, whose best features are often not obvious and require some close attention in order to enjoy their true antiquated beauty. Hemingway was in fact an avid collector of furniture from Spain from the 17th and 18th centuries, and his 18th-century Walnut Secretary, complete with hidden compartments, remains one of the home’s most popular displays. There is certainly an element of vintage appeal throughout the house. The paintings, chandeliers, and other architectural details, which have been immaculately preserved over the years, foster a sense that time has magically stood still at the Hemingway house. Did you know – Culture Trip now does bookable, small-group trips? Pick from authentic, immersive Epic Trips, compact and action-packed Mini Trips and sparkling, expansive Sailing Trips.
Childhood trips to the remote woods of Michigan inspired his fascination with nature and a lifelong quest for adventure, including his passion for hunting and fishing. Interested in writing from an early age, he began his career as a journalist, working as a reporter in the Midwest. When poor eyesight kept him from enlisting during World War I, Hemingway volunteered as a Red Cross ambulance driver and was severely wounded in Italy at age 18, leading to a long convalescence. The idea was to make a movie to raise money for the Loyalist cause. When he left Cuba in 1960 with his fourth wife, Mary, he knew he’d be back. But the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 cut off his return and separated him from his beloved Pilar.
The Hemingways’ personal touches still abound throughout the house. Many of the unique furnishings are European antiques collected during their stay on the continent. The trophy mounts and skins were souvenirs of the Hemingways’ African safaris and numerous hunting expeditions in the American west. Ernest’s presence can still be felt in his studio where he produced some of his most well-known works. In addition, a very visible and living link to the past are the descendants of Hemingway’s cats. The story goes that Hemingway made the acquaintance of a sea captain who owned an unusual six-toed tomcat, which captured Ernest’s fancy.
Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940; they separatedafter he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II. He was present at theNormandy landings and the liberation of Paris. The Hemingway home was built in 1851 in the Spanish Colonial style and was constructed of native rock hewn from the grounds. The home was in great disrepair when the Hemingways took ownership, but both Ernest and Pauline could see beyond the rubble and ruin and appreciated the grand architecture and stateliness of the home.
The coach house became a pool house, and Hemingway had walls built around the grounds. He also installed a catwalk that allowed him to walk from the bedroom to his studio in the pool house. There he wrote the nonfiction Green Hills of Africa (1935), the novel To Have and Have Not (1937), and the short stories “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” (both 1936). It was built in 1851 in the French Colonial style and is now on the National Register of Historic Places and a U.S. Visitors to the Hemingway Home Museum are given a tour of the residence and gardens, where they can see many of Hemingway's belongings as well as the many cats that live on the property, which you may spot in this live view. According to legend, they are said to be descendants of Ernest Hemingway's cat, Snow White.
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