Key West is a special little island. It’s the kind of place where presidents, movie stars and writers can exist in relative peace, away from the prying eyes of the mainland. It’s one of many reasons that Ernest Hemingway made a life here in the 1930s.
Hemingway, known for his books A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea, settled into this house with Pauline Pfeiffer, his onetime mistress. She bought a notoriously expensive swimming pool and he wrote To Have and Have Not in the adjoining pool house.
This abode is known most, however, for the “Hemingway cats,” 50 or so polydactl cats living on the estate. The five or more-toed felines, tabbies, calicos and everything in between, make their home all over the house and grounds. It’s enough to turn anyone into a cat lady (or man).
As a man with four wives and even more mistresses, these cats seem to have been his most loyal companions. The many-toed cats are said to bring good luck, but whether this was true for him remains to be seen. While he had commercial success with his work, especially since they are still required reading in every school in the country, but he committed suicide at age 61.
It’s easy to picture Hemingway here, despite the fact that most of the furnishings, apart from his typewriter and iron frame bed, were placed here by the museum, which opened in 1964, three years after his death. Even the Hemingway cats’ authenticity is debatable. It’s been said that he got his first polydactl cat from a boat captain in Key West, but no one knows whether the present-day cats are related.
But that doesn’t make them any less beloved. Old Ernest wasn’t one for traditional cats names, either. Instead, they bore the names of famous actors and performers like Frank Sinatra, Errol Flynn, Edgar Allan Poe and John Wayne. They are all buried on the grounds in the cat cemetery, pictured above.
One of the house’s most unusual features is this water trough for the cats, which was a urinal at the infamous Sloppy Joe’s bar in a former life. It was also at Sloppy Joe’s where Hemingway met Martha Gelhorn, a foreign correspondent whom he later married.
Getting There
The Hemingway House is located at 907 Whitehead Street in historic Key West, Florida. You can visit daily 365 days per year from 9 am to 5 pm. Tours last 30 minutes but you can also wander the property on your own. Admission is $13 for adults, $8 for children and free for 5 and under, but you may also purchase combination tickets with other area attractions.
This sounds like the kind of place I’d enjoy visiting! The cats look so at home despite all the visitors coming through.