Hemingway House

Today – Christmas Day – I decided it would be a nice, quiet day to visit the Hemingway Home and Museum.

Here’s some background (and some photos) I purloined from Wikipedia…

The residence was constructed in 1851 in a French Colonial style by wealthy marine architect and salvager Asa Tift.

Incidentally, at the time, salvagers were the wealthiest people in Key West, and salvaging made Key West the wealthiest city in the US (on a per capita basis).

From 1931 to 1939, the house was inhabited by Hemingway and his wife Pauline Pfeiffer. They restored the decaying property and made several additions. During his time at the home, Hemingway wrote some of his best received works, including the non-fiction work Green Hills of Africa (1935), the 1936 short stories “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber“, and the novels To Have And Have Not(1937) and Islands in the Stream (1970).^[

If you note the late publication date for Islands in the Stream, it’s because the manuscript was discovered in the house after Hemingway’s death.

Here’s a shot of Ernest and Pauline that I found online. It looks like fun.

In 1939, Hemingway moved to Cuba.

After their divorce and Hemingway’s suicide, the house was auctioned off and subsequently converted into a private museum in 1964. On November 24, 1968, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.

As I walked home, I passed Sloppy Joe’s Bar, Hemingway’s favorite saloon in Key West. Hemingway and Joe Russell were friends and fishing buddies for more than 12 years.

So, of course I stopped in for a beer. And of course the bartender was from Annapolis. (12 noon on Christmas Day, and the place was packed.) I love Key West.