Hemingway Home and Museum Key West Florida with the Six 6 toed cats.

Our first visit to the Hemingway Home was in October 2002. The Home is very well preserved, almost as if stuck in time.

As a matter of fact, upon walking into the home it felt like we were walking back in time. The year being 1937 we found out later. It felt as if Hemingway would walk around a corner any minute. Maybe I felt his presence. I don't know. I still get chills thinking about that first visit.

It has been said that Hemingway can occasionally be seen sitting and walking inside his home, and outside reportedly at times waving to you. I have not seen him. Yet.

The tour guide was very well versed, an encyclopedia of knowledge and answered all our questions. We learned a lot about Mr. Hemingway, his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer and his third wife Martha Gellhorn that day.

Ernest and Pauline married in 1927 and in 1928 moved from Paris where she was working as a journalist for Vogue Magazine to Key West. They lived in a modest apartment where Hemingway continued to write and finished The Sun Also Rises.

In 1931 Pauline's rich uncle Gus paid $8,000 and gifted to them what would become the Historic Hemingway Home and Museum on Whitehead Street. It was in several stages of ruin and decay.

I was told there may be truth to the rumor that Ernest chose that house because it is close to the Key West Lighthouse - which can be seen from almost anywhere in Key West - and he would have no trouble finding his way home any time day or night. Interesting theory.

The home relied on two cisterns for water. Public water did not arrive to Key West until World War II in the 1940's. The home did have electricity which arrived in Key West in 1899, the year Ernest was born.

They made the house their home. Had just about everything inside redone. Added his writing studio complete with his 1700's Walnut Secretary from Spain. Did you know? He collected Spanish furniture built in the 1600's and 1700's .

Hemingway would rise in the morning and head to his studio to write. Hemingway would not stop writing or leave his studio until he had written at least 800 words.

He would then consider his daily work finished and go fishing, boxing, head to Greene Street to "drink with his fools" or whatever would be a distraction for him.

The in ground pool. Hemingway did not want it. The pool is dug into pure limestone coral and took hundreds of hours of labor and was ready to dive into in 1937. It was the first in Key West. I believe it cost close to $10,000 although some suggest it was closer to $20,000.

Hemingway placed a penny in the drying pool concrete and said something similar to "there now you have taken my last penny". But, he did not pay for it. His wife Pauline paid for it! The penny can still be found in the concrete today from 1937! (some say it was 1938).

It is ironic that in 1936 Hemingway met his future wife number three Martha Gellhorn while she was on a family vacation in Key West. She was a writer and journalist. She was 28, very successful and already had two novels under her belt. Ernest was 37 and had published while with Pauline The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, Death in the Afternoon, and Green Hills of Africa along with shorts.

Well, Martha was in Key West. In Sloppy Joe's. In 1936. Hemingway was present. As usual. She paid the bartender $20 for an introduction. That was a lot of money back then, the U.S. was still feeling the economic damage of the Great Depression. From there we don't know if anything happened between them in 1936 in Key West but Martha was invited and did sun tan at the Hemingway Home back yard. He ran into her again in Spain in 1937 while she was covering the Spanish Civil War for Colliers magazine.

Little known fact: Martha Gellhorn was the only woman to go ashore at Normandy's Omaha Beach with U.S. Troops on D Day June 6, 1944. She had snuck on board the landing craft and was a stowaway! She was a war correspondent legend in her time. Her boots on the ground approach worked well for her. She died of apparent suicide in 1998 at the age of 89.

Pauline stayed in Key West. Hemingway had fallen out of favor with the locals in Key West because of Martha. They considered Pauline a dear friend who did not deserve to be treated that way by Ernest. He never returned to Key West.

Pauline lived in the Key West home with their sons until her death in 1951. That same year the Hemingway Home celebrated it's 100th trip around the Sun.

When asked about leaving Pauline for Martha he was quoted as saying "those that live by the sword die by the sword".

Which I took to mean that Hemingway was still married to wife number one (1921 - 1927) Hadley Richardson (8 years his senior) when he met Pauline. Pauline the seductress as he called her, he said not much to look at but very sensuous.

Martha left Hemingway and divorced him in 1945, his shortest marriage and the only wife to ever leave him. No matter her successes, she was always considered standing in the shadow of her husband.

He then went on to marry wife number four Mary Welsh in 1946 (also a journalist, that he met in London in 1945). Mary did not mind at all being in the shadow of Hemingway's greatness. They moved to Cuba. Then in 1959 to Ketchem, Idaho. She was with him until his death in 1961 in Idaho at age 62 when he lamented "nothing works anymore".

He wrote a novel about it, Across the River and Into the Trees. The main characters are a 50 year old man (him) and a 19 year old woman (her). Adriana later admitted that she was the 19 year old in the book. Mary allowed it to be published two years after his death. Mary had a lot of class.

In 2011 much of Hemingway's personal papers and more were donated to the JFK Presidential Library in Boston. In one love letter between them Hemingway writes in part "When I am away from you I do not give a damn, really, about any thing" & "I miss you very much. Sometimes it is so bad that I cannot stand it."

Adriana committed suicide in 1983. Adriana with Hemingway deserves more research to get a better feel for the real Hemingway and his very complex personality.

Sloppy Joe Russell's rent on the Greene Street Sloppy Joe's was raised from $3 to $4 a week. He considered the increase unreasonable Joe decided to buy the vacant building at 201 Duval Street for $2,500 (some say $1,500). However, he was bound by a lease until May of the following year which prohibited him from relocating the business or removing anything from inside the premises. On May 1, 1937 his lease ended.

So the evening of May 5th, 1937 Joe and his bar patrons relocated Sloppy Joe's Bar and everything inside the Bar to the current Sloppy Joe's location at 201 Duval Street. Everything. Even the urinal. According to our Tour Guide they then continued to drink the night away at the new Sloppy Joe's location. Ernest wanted the urinal so he dragged it home that night. Some stories claim Sloppy Joe delivered it. Ernest was out of the country some of that year so it could be true.

Anyway, my shoe became untied so I sat down to tie it. A six toed cat immediately jumped on my lap and wanted some love! And she received a lot of it. Soon I found myself the target of several cats who craved some attention from us humans. There were so many varieties and breeds all mixed up. No two were alike. They were all differently unique and very sweet and friendly. Some even had the usual five toes instead of the famous six, which is not really all that uncommon. It is caused by a mutated gene that is found in cats all over this part of the world.

My wife Terri decided to sit for a minute and the same sweet cat jumped from my lap to her lap! It seemed as if the kitty just wanted to nap on her lap.

We enjoyed the cats then, and again while we strolled the very lush vegetation of the yard. Which is quite large and the plants are very well cared for.

When you do leave the Hemingway Home, you are a short walk from the Southernmost Point Buoy at 1400 White4head Street. Or you can head the other direction on Whitehead Street to the Green Parrot Bar. It is one of the Bars where the locals hang out. A very cool bar.

Please scroll down when you land on their page to see admission prices. Tickets are sold at the main gate. No reservations are required! Open all year. Enjoy!

I was told the Papa picture at the right is from the 1950's on board his yacht the Pilar.

Here is a great way to see the Hemingway Home & Museum and world famous cats. The Hemingway Home and Museum Guided Tour link is above . See it before the featured tour starts.

There are many Hemingway theme tours available. The Hemingway Food & Drink Walking Tour is one of the best. The Hemingway Home front gate is the Food and Drink Walking Tour starting point. Take the Guided Tour of the Hemingway Home Before the food and drink walking tour.

Click the No Obligation link for available dates, times, prices, menu and more details.

You will see where he lived when he arrived in Key West in 1928, kept his yacht Pilar, the places he liked hanging out, the original Sloppy Joe's and current Sloppy Joe's, and much more.
hemingways yacht pilar

Hemingway's Yacht Pilar in her Glory Days.

Did you know? Hemingway volunteered to help in the first World War.

It is hard for me to imagine Hemingway living through the first World War where he volunteered at age 18 as an ambulance driver and was wounded on the Italian front by mortar fire that landed in his trench.

Then while in the hospital he fell in love with Alice his nurse. fyi - He said his first wife Hadley reminded him of his nurse Alice that took care of him in the hospital. (A Farewell to Arms).

He was there. The 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, Stock Market crash of 1929, the Great Depression and it's worldwide economic turmoil and in Key West (To Have and Have Not).

Prohibition. The Labor Day hurricane of 1935 where he volunteered to go to Islamorada and help with the 244 dead and search for the 165 missing. He covered the Spanish Civil War (For Whom the Bell Tolls). Witnessed the 2nd World War. The Korean War. God knows what else. And we wonder why he loved to drink and to fish. My guess is he drank to help him forget as well.

He is also quoted with saying "I drink to make people more interesting". After what he had seen first hand and the guilt he had to live with all the way back to Hadley I believe it to be partly true. He had written a book about his life with Hadley - more about that follows in the next paragraph. And had written a book about he and his mistress while married to Mary. Yep. Across the River and Into the Trees.

After his death in 1961 Mary Hemingway discovered more than 300 unpublished works. She released the unpublished novel A Moveable Feast in 1964, that is based on his marriage to Hadley and living in Paris in the 1920's. He finished most of it after he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. For more books visit the Hemingway Book Page.

Check out the history behind the famous Hemingway Daiquiri and Papa Doble (and how it got its name) along with great drink recipes. Cheers to Papa Hemingway!

Some links do not earn a commission. Such as the Hemingway Home and Museum Guided Tour. The link is provided because we believe the Hemingway Home and Museum should be visited while in Key West, Florida. Located at 907 Whitehead Street near the Key West Lighthouse and Museum and Southernmost Point.

Did you know? There are many Guided Ghost Tours in Key West.

There are several guided Ghost Tours available in Key West. One which includes Robert the Doll the world's most haunted doll. You may have heard of him or caught documentaries about him on the TV.

The button below takes you to Guided Ghost Tour listings with brief descriptions and provides links directly to each tour with prices and more detailed information. Several Ghost Tours are listed for your entertainment if you dare.

The Southernmost Point Buoy is not far from the Hemingway Home at 1400 Whitehead Street. And the Key West Lighthouse is across the street. You should visit both while on Whitehead Street!