Hemingway House in Key West
Hemingway’s Key West studio
on bullfighting in Pamplona, Spain. Hemingway then married his second wife, Pauline, in 1927, and the two moved back to America. KEYWEST, FLORIDA 1928-1939 Ernest and Pauline never meant to call Key West home.The two first arrived at the southernmost town in the Continental United States on a steamship from Cuba after a long cold winter in Paris. It was April 1928. “Pauline’s Uncle Gus had bought the couple a Model A Ford, and it was supposed to be in Key West when they arrived.There weren’t the bridges we have now. Most everything was shipped in by boat or rail.The car dealer was so embar- rassed the car wasn’t there that he offered Hemingway and his wife an apartment
above the dealership to stay.That dealer- ship was on Simonton Street. It was called the Trev-Mor Ford. Today the building is a private residence called Casa Antigua. Hemingway was so inspired by Key West that he finished A Farewell to Arms while staying at the apartment. Just think, if the car had been ready, he might not have lived in Key West, and it would have been a whole other story,” says Carol Shaugh- nessy, a 40-year Key West resident, who works with Newman PR’s Florida Keys News Bureau, and is former director of the city’s Hemingway Days festival. Pauline’s Uncle Gus bought the Hemingways’ home on Whitehead Street for them in 1931. Originally built in 1851, the two-story Spanish Colonial-style house undertook a massive restoration and remodeling that included the addition of a pool in the late 1930s. Today,
the Hemingway Home is a National Historic Landmark, open for daily tours. “His writing studio probably was his favorite room. He was able to get out of bed in his master bedroom and walk across the catwalk and start his day writing. He would continue writing until around noon,” says Alexa Morgan, director of PR for the Hemingway Home & Museum, who adds that the author penned a huge portion of his life’s work here . “Hemingway was an animal lover, so he enjoyed it when a ship captain gifted his sons a kitten and they named it Snow White,” adds Morgan. “Polydactyl cats are meant to be of good luck. A quote of his, ‘One cat just leads to another,’ is one of our favorites, since we currently have 58 (many are six- and seven-toed) cats on the property. We kept his tradition alive by naming our resident felines after famous
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