HEMINGWAY MUSEUM
Cats have the run of this spot where famed American author Ernest Hemingway wrote some of his greatest novels, including Death in the Afternoon and To Have and Have Not. Some 60 felines—with names like Joe Jackson, Judy Garland and Jackie O.—call the house and grounds home at any given time. Ignoring the barriers that keep visitors at a distance, you’ll find them lounging on Hemingway’s bed, in the bathroom sink, next to his typewriter, and of course all over the garden. So pampered are they that there’s a full-time staff dedicated to their care, and a veterinarian makes weekly house calls to keep them healthy. The cats— about half of which are polydactyl, meaning that they have an extra toe on each paw—are said to be descended from a six-toed feline given to Hemingway by a ship’s captain. Polydactyl cats were thought to be good luck—since the author was accident-prone, he liked to keep them around in the hope they would keep him safe.
Hemingway lived in this house from 1931 to 1939, and the paintings, chandeliers, and architectural details from the time are immaculately preserved, freezing a very specific moment in time— and American literary history. Many of the unique furnishings are European antiques collected by Hemingway and his wife, Pauline, while trophy mounts and skins on display are souvenirs of the couple’s African safaris and hunting expeditions in the American West.
It’s easy to get lost in the writer’s life in Hemingway’s studio, which holds the small manual Royal typewriter he worked at for several hours every morning, after walking down to the beach for a brisk swim.
The cats are not the only attraction outside—the in-ground swimming pool, built on Hemingway’s former boxing ring, was an extraordinary luxury, costing $20,000 in 1938 (about $340,000 today). While many believe that Pauline commissioned the pool to spite her husband for his dalliances, Hemingway Home staff notes that the author ordered the pool himself, but left his wife to oversee the mounting expense of digging through solid coral while he traveled as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. Look carefully around the north end of the pool to see a penny embedded in cement, memorializing one of the author’s rumored outbursts over the costs. He supposedly flung it on the half-built flagstone pool patio and bellowed, “Pauline, you’ve spent all but my last penny, so you might as well have that!”