Hemingway’s Key West
If you’re a lover of literature and a lover of pristine beaches, you’re going to adore Key West and visiting the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum located at 907 Whitehead Street, nestled in the heart of Old Town Key West.It is said that Hemingway first visited Key West on his way back from Paris via Havana, Cuba and found it to be “the best place I’ve ever been anytime, anywhere, flowers, tamarind trees, guava trees, coconut palms…Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks.”He lived and wrote from this beach community for more than 10 years as he found solace in the turquoise waters that surrounded him. Indeed he must have been inspired since it was here that he penned A Farewell to Arms which was published in 1929.Together with his friends Charles Thompson, Joe Russell (also known as Sloppy Joe), and Capt. Eddie “Bra” Saunders, and his old Paris friends the crew became known as the “The Key West Mob”. The “Mob” would go fishing to the Dry Tortugas, Bimini, and Cuba for days and weeks at a time in pursuit of giant tuna and marlin. Everyone in the “Mob” had a nickname; and it was at this time that Hemingway became known as “Papa” and numerous works were based on the people and places he encountered.Hemingway’s Key West was a town unlike any place he ever experienced. The town was filled with interesting people from the well to do and the down-on-their-luck fishermen and wreckers. Hemingway used most of these people as characters in his novel To Have and Have Not (which is about Key West during the depression) and in his succeeding works, as well.While living in Key West Hemmingway was given a six-toed cat by a ship’s captain and to this day there are decedents from this cat running in-and-amongst the 60 cats that inhabit the grounds.Between the cats and the memories that walk the halls of the home and the grounds, a stop by Hemingway’s home should be considered a “must see” for anyone wanting to rub elbows (albeit proverbial elbows) with one of America’s greatest writers.