One of the greatest authors of American literature produced most of his work in a house in Key West, Florida, the southernmost city in the US. That author was Ernest Hemingway and today you can visit the house where he once lived, which is now the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum.
FAMOUS NOVELS
Built in 1851 in the city’s Old Town quarter, the house was acquired by the rich uncle of Ernest Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline, and was a wedding gift for the couple, who lived there between 1931 and 1939. Every day, Hemingway would wake up at dawn and write until noon, after which he would often go fishing in the local waters. He wrote many of his most famous novels there, including Death in the Afternoon, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Snows of Kilimanjaro.
SEVERAL PETS
While living in Key West, Hemingway befriended a sea captain who gave him a polydactyl cat, meaning that it had extra toes, considered good luck. Hemingway named the cat Snowball and, as he once wrote, “One cat just leads to another.” He soon had several cats that he named after famous people. Today, fifty-nine descendants of his cats – also named after famous people – live at the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum. Many of the cats are polydactyl, like Snowball, and they are an enormous attraction for visitors.
SIX-fingerED cats
Whether driving an ambulance in Italy during the war, running with bulls in Pamplona, fishing marlins in Havana, socialising with expats in Paris, reporting in Civil War Spain or shooting lions in Africa, Ernest Hemingway’s life is one of another era, when the lives of celebrated writers were exciting and adventurous. But it was in the tranquillity of beautiful Key West, the furthest island of the Florida Keys archipelago, where he wrote some of his most famous books in the 1930s. Today, the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum offers visitors a glimpse of the lesser-known life of the writer, as well as the opportunity to – why not? – spend time with some of the fifty-nine cats descended from Hemingway’s beloved pet Snowball. Speak Up visited the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, where we talked to its director of public relations Alexa Morgan. We began by asking her how it compares to when Hemingway lived here.
Alexa Morgan (American accent): The home itself we’ve strived to keep it at the original state when Hemingway was here, with the exception of new paint, updating a few fixtures here and there, stuff like that. When Pauline and Hemingway moved here, between 1928 and 1930, she did a complete renovation of the property. At that moment, she had a lot of tiles and furnishings imported from Paris and Spain, including the bathroom tiles. She removed all of the ceiling fans and put in chandeliers of blown glass... and big open rooms, all surrounded by a lush garden.
INSPIRATIONAL
And visitors are usually inspired by the experience, as she explains.
Alexa Morgan: When visitors come here, even if they have never heard of Hemingway, once they do learn they have a new admiration for him, along with enjoying the grounds, the home, the timeframe of when he was here and of course enjoying all of our cats.
SUPERSTITIOUS
Hemingway kept cats as protection against bad luck, says Morgan.
Alexa Morgan: When Ernest Hemingway lived here on property, during that time it was known that polydactyl cats were in a sense good luck, especially in the maritime world, on ships and boats, that sort of thing. He was very accident-prone and he wanted to surround himself with as much luck as he could.
LUCKY FOR SOME
And the felines are still treated with great respect, she says.
Alexa Morgan: All the staff here on property take care of the cats. There are fifty-nine of them now on property, and so they have a vet that shows up every week to check up on them, and then we ourselves take care of them, feed them, water ... everything like that. We’ve been keeping up with the tradition of Hemingway, keeping the line alive and keeping the cats here on property. They are polydactyl cats, so they carry a recessive gene that gives them an extra toe. They all carry the gene, not all of them show the extras.
A STRICT ROUTINE
Although famous for being adventurous, Hemingway was also disciplined, says Morgan.
Alexa Morgan: A fun fact about Ernest Hemingway is that when he did live here, he would wake up every morning at sunrise, go to his writing studio and write continuously until about lunchtime. In fact, when he lived here, just for those short nine years, is when he wrote about 70 per cent of his life’s work, including books, poems and short stories. I think this home appealed to Ernest Hemingway because of the island life, the community. This home in particular was built out of coral stone and it is one of the second-highest elevations on the island, so it really is a nice, massive, beautiful piece of property.
A NATURAL EXTROVERT
The writer loved the sea and the community spirit of Key West, as Morgan explains.
Alexa Morgan: Key West itself it’s surrounded by the water, he loved the fishing, it was a whole new kind of adventure to go on the boat, fishing, all that, plus the small community that he got to be a part of. He was known to be a character around town.