This Thanksgiving I traveled to Key West for vacation and was lucky enough to visit the Hemingway Home and Museum. If you’re a writer, this should be one of the top things on your bucket list. Ernest Hemingway was an author most notable for his adventurous lifestyle and his “iceberg theory,” which emphasized including as few details as possible in his writing. I admire Hemingway, but in many ways, he and I couldn’t be more opposite. Hemingway was a minimalist with a taste for adventure and danger. I am a maximist and a homebody who will startle at any hint of danger. Although we are quite different, I often wish I could write as minimalistically as Hemingway and be as brave as he was. Who knows? Maybe someday I will be.
A little background on Hemingway: He was born in 1899 and died in 1961 by suicide. In WWII he was injured, then fell in love with his nurse. This became the inspiration for one of his most famous novels, A Farewell to Arms. After he recovered, he moved to France where he wrote his first solid success: The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway traveled all over the world for bullfighting, fishing, and hunting. He moved into the Key West house with his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer in 1931. While there, he wrote To Have and Have Not, a novel about Key West during the Great Depression. He lived in Key West for eight years before moving to Cuba with another new wife.
Located on Whitehead Street, the Hemingway House is obscured from street view, hidden behind overhanging palm tree leaves and a red brick wall Hemingway had built around the property to deter tourists. When you step through the gates, it’s like you’ve stepped into a little paradise. A pathway leads to the house surrounded by green grass, thick bushes, and more palms. The canary yellow house stands center stage. It’s a Spanish colonial style home with beautiful arch glass windows on the balcony and a grand arch glass double door.
When you step in, there’s a short, tight hallway ahead and a room to your left and right. To the right is a living room with a beautiful antique European sofa and a display about Ernest Hemingway’s boat. My favorite thing in the room is the gorgeous pink glass chandelier, one of the many that Pauline Pfeiffer—Ernest Hemingway’s wife from 1927 to 1940—collected and furbished the house with. According to our tour guide, wherever you see a chandelier, there originally hung a fan. Pfeiffer apparently found fans tacky and replaced each one with a chandelier she collected from across the globe from Spain to Italy to Morocco.
Across the hall is the dining room. A cat lounged on the center of the table, unbothered by our presence. Hemingway’s house is a cat-lover’s paradise. Another difference between he and I: Hemingway was a cat person while I’m a dog person. As I walked around, I occasionally jumped at the brush of fur against my leg. Some cats stayed hidden in cute little yellow cat houses tucked into corners all over the property while others happily walked up to guests for pets and posed for photos.
The property is currently home to over 60 cats! Most of them are thought to be descendants of Snow White, a polydactyl (aka six-toed) cat gifted to Ernest Hemingway by a ship’s captain. The unique six toes appear on many of the cats seen on the grounds. Outside in a separate corner lies a little cat cemetery with a plaque for every cat who has died. Ernest Hemingway liked to name his cats after famous people and characters, a cute tradition the employees still continue today. I read names off the memorial like Edgar Allan Poe, Audrey Hepburn, Dorian Gray, and more.
Upstairs there is a small bedroom that doesn’t look big enough to fit a bed. This is where the nanny for Hemingway’s sons lived. She had a small bathroom with unique yellow fish tiles (courtesy of Pfeiffer). Everything in the bathroom looks miniature, from the tiny chair to the short showerhead. In the room next to it is the master bedroom. The bed’s ornate, dark wooden headboard looks so elegant. The bedroom also has a door out to the balcony, which has a beautiful view of the grounds and the street below.
Outside stretches the rectangular pool, once a spectacle for its extravagance. The pool was built for a grand total of $20,000. It was the first in-ground pool in Key West. Pfeiffer oversaw the construction, and Hemingway often complained about the exorbitant cost. When he returned home from his travels to discover the pool in the former place of his boxing ring (Hemingway enjoyed sparring with amateur local boxers), he reportedly took a penny out of his pocket and said to Pfeiffer, “You’ve spent all but my last cent, so you may as well have that!” Pfeiffer then impressed that penny into the cement at the head of the pool, which you can still see today.
One of the coolest parts of the Hemingway Home is the study, a room in a separate standalone building next to the house. We got to glimpse it through a metal gate. It amazed me to think a writer could write so many famous works in a single room. It’s a simple place: at the center stands a wooden desk and chair. On either side stand two more chairs, lime green and cushioned. Multiple bookshelves line the back walls. The walls themselves are covered in paintings and animal heads, like antelope and fish. A pair of full glass doors offer a view of the grounds, and I can imagine Hemingway opening them to get a breath of fresh air as he wrote.
I would’ve stayed there all day if I could. The Hemingway House is beautiful and offers an intimate look into one of the most influential writers of our time. It’s an inspiring place. I hope to return someday. I aspire to become as great a writer as Hemingway was, or at least achieve a sprinkle of the success he had. He was such a talented writer.
You can learn more about the Hemingway House on their official site here.
Comments are closed