The Hemingway Home & Museum - Literary Tourism, Part 1

To the seasoned literary tourist*, the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum might seem too obvious a choice to launch a series about the best writer homes, haunts, and hubs around the world.

- ZACHARY PETIT

Aft er all, if you were to ask a film buff for their highest recommendation for a weekend watch, they’d probably be tempted to off er up something obscure, something truly off the beaten path … but ultimately, they’d likely tell you to watch Th e Godfather. And rightly so.

When it comes to the Godfather of American letters, you’ve gotta hand it to Papa. Because in the end, story trumps all—and his incredible house in Key West, Fla., is where a key part of his literary legacy, and his legend as we know it today, was truly forged.

When Hemingway came to the island in April 1928 for the first time, he wasn’t yet the larger-than-life novelist. Rather, he was a journalist and war correspondent who had just published Th e Sun Also Rises— and, well, he didn’t really have a great fortune under his belt (something not wholly unfamiliar to many the working journalist). But with his wife Pauline, what he did have was an Uncle Gus—and Uncle Gus had given the couple a brand-new Ford Roadster. Problem was, it wasn’t ready yet, so Hemingway and his wife hunkered down in a Key West apartment for a few weeks. (Where Hemingway sat down and banged out A Farewell to Arms, as one does.)

Away from his typewriter, he palled up with hardware store owner Charles Thompson, who introduced him to big-game fishing. Coupled with the quaintness of the community, the Hemingways became smitten with the town—and in 1931, Uncle Gus bought a dilapidated 80-year-old house for $8,000 in back taxes, and gave it to them, as one does.