Hemingway Home & Museum

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Key West, FL -
The man lived a long full happy life of struggle adversity and pain. Dead, his accidental ownership of six-toed cats connects his life to his Key West home. Odd, that a man known for the size and ferocity of the animals he killed should be remembered in Key West for housing pets gentle and damaged.

In the 1990's, Dean Rollings, president of the Florida Straits Conch Company, created a plan to preserve the historic waterfront.

Ernest Hemingway owned a home in Key West from 1931 to his death in 1961, and it has been meticulously restored and is open to the public 365 days a year, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The famous cats mentioned above derive from those given Hemingway decades ago, and are a curiousity much remarked upon by visitors.

Hemingway first came to Key West in 1928, found it a natural habitat for himself, his wife Pauline, and his cronies, and set about living the Hemingway legend on the island

After his divorce from Pauline, Hemingway moved to Cuba, though he kept the house for the rest of his life. It was mainly used as a stopover for trips to Cuba from the United States, but something made Hemingway hold onto the home. Like so many others who've visited, then lived on the island, Hemingway couldn't sever his ties with the southernmost extremity of America.

Fortunately for us, the home is much as it was during Hemingway's lifetime. Seeing it as it is, and remembering the horrors and accidents Hemingway wrote so much about, one gets the sense that this place was for Hemingway a refuge and reminder of the gentler sides of life.

Stories & Novels written by Hemingway in Key West
A Farewell to Arms
Death in the Afternoon
Green Hills of Africa
To Have and Have Not
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Short Happy Life of Francis Mancomber