The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum
Welcome to the Hemingway Home and Museum, the gorgeous Key West property where Ernest Hemingway lived and wrote for over 10 years, a period that many consider 'the most prolific period of the Nobel Prize winner's writing career'.
The home is located at 907 Whitehead Street across from the Key West Lighthouse, on the southern coast of the island. Hemingway was obsessed with the tranquil waters surrounding the home, as well as the nearby fishing opportunities. Very often you could find Hemingway out fishing Dry Tortugas with friends, and if he wasn't fishing he was either at home with his wife Pauline and family or at his friend's bar, Sloppy Joes. He also spent a lot of time at home in his pool, one of the most opulent of the time, made from solid coral (see below).
Take a 30-minute narrated tour during your visit and see the 1851 Spanish Colonial home up close and personal, with original furniture and design indoors and lush gardens and architecture outdoors. See the Hemingway chandelier collection or red leather chair inside, then walk through the lush gardens outside and see hibiscus, water lilies, banana trees, and many more plants.
One of the most unique things about this home? There are over 40 cats on the property, each believed to be descendants of Snow White, Hemingway's beloved cat gifted to him by a local ship captain. All the cats here carry the gene of being polydactyl (6 toes) as Snow White was, but only about 75% of them actually have 6 toes.
