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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. 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. One of the more stunning and unusual features of the Hemingway Home property is the in-ground swimming pool, an extraordinary luxury for a residential home in 1930s Key West. Even more mind-boggling is the sheer labor of digging, in solid coral, a massive hole 24 feet wide, 60 feet long, 10 feet deep at the south end, and 5 feet deep at the north end.
The beautiful Ernest Hemingway Key West Home & Museum, FL
When the 30-minute tour ends I buy another copy of “The Old Man and the Sea” in the gift shop, which I always seem to do, and a postcard that shows a grinning Hemmingway posing with a dead marlin. The Hemingway on the postcard reminds me of my bare-chested dad when we lived in Key West when I was a boy, only my dad was one of those men who fished off the seawall because he got seasick. Writers have always loved the Keys, none more famous than Ernest Hemingway, who bought a beautiful Spanish colonial home at 907 Whitehead Street in 1931 and stayed eight years. The warm waters surrounding Key West seemed to beckon Hemingway. 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.
Everything You Need to Know about Visiting Hemingway’s House on Key West
These cats are descendants of the cat Snow White that a ship captain once gave to Hemingway. The Hemingway house in Key West was a gift to Ernest Hemingway and his wife Pauline from the latter’s well off uncle. Originally the Key West house was built in 1851 from rock and in Spanish Colonial style.
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In addition, the house and grounds are occupied by dozens of six-toed cats that are said to be descended from a cat that Hemingway owned. The Ernest Hemingway House was the residence of American writer Ernest Hemingway in the 1930s. It is at 907 Whitehead Street, across from the Key West Lighthouse, close to the southern coast of the island. Due to its association with Hemingway, the property is the most popular tourist attraction in Key West.
The Hemingway property has two notable fountains with interesting histories. Asa Tift constructed the fountain, and it’s in the form of an ironclad ship. JL stopped us for a bit at what she called the “Wall of Wives” to talk about Hemingway’s four marriages. He certainly followed a rogueish pattern of meeting women, falling desperately in love, and marrying them soon after the last wife served him with divorce papers. Asa Tift was a slave owner, and enslaved people likely were the primary labor source for the excavation, stone cutting, and construction of the home.
Ernest Hemingway lived an exciting life and the guides do a great job telling the story. So expect a few laughs along the way as you tour the Hemingway house. Ernest Hemingway lived in the house in Key West from 1931 to 1939.
The Tift family: 1851-1931
Whether your tour guide looks like Ernest Hemingway or not, you will learn a lot about the great writer, his wives, his time in Cuba, and so much more. While you can explore the home on your own, we recommend that you go on one of the guided tours. One of the things you may first notice is the remarkable resemblance of some of the staff members to the writer. Mary was able to return to Finca Vigia to retrieve some of Hemingway’s belongings, but the house itself soon fell into disrepair.
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He sailed his boat, Pilar, around the Keys and fished the Gulf Stream extensively. Many famous images of Hemingway picture him standing dockside in the Caribbean, the catch of the day hanging beside him. Those tourists bothered him, knocked on his door, distracted him from his writing. That’s what he told people anyway, though the truth was more complicated. The cats are not shy at all and you find them all over the grounds.
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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.
The home remained in Ernest Hemingway’s possession until he died in 1961. The home’s location is on the second-highest point on Key West, about 16 feet (4.88 m) above sea level. Tift chose an elevated spot in order to excavate limestone from the property to construct the house. The excavation also allowed for a basement under the home, a rarity on Key West. She used the perfect mix of humor and history to keep our group entertained and engaged while we learned about the house and Hemingway’s time in Key West. For a literary retreat like no other, step back in time to the Hemingway Key West days!
Hemingway’s home was originally built in 1851 by Asa Tift, a former naval architect and sea captain from Groton, Connecticut. Tift owned several stores in Key West, along with ships and a large salvaging operation, making him one of the wealthiest men in the area at the time. The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum is located at 907 Whitehead Street, close to the Key West Lighthouse and Museum. The line can be long, especially on days when cruise ships are in port. He landed at Normandy to report on the D-Day invasions and earned his Bronze Star as a civilian.
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