The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West

Approximately sixty cats inhabit the property, and roughly half exhibit the physical polydactyly trait—possessing six or even seven toes on their front paws and extra digits on their rear paws. All of the resident felines carry the polydactyl gene, meaning even normal-toed cats on site father or mother six-toed litters.

According to historical accounts, ship captain Stanley Dexter presented Ernest Hemingway with a six-toed white Maine Coon kitten named Snow White in the early 1930s. Sailors valued polydactyl cats for superior balance on pitching decks and superstitious luck. Today, all cats are named after famous historical figures, authors, and screen stars (including Audrey Hepburn, Mark Twain, and Pablo Picasso). The museum employs a dedicated veterinarian who visits weekly, administers vaccinations, and oversees a climate-controlled feeding and quarantine nursery on the grounds.

Across an elevated wooden catwalk on the second floor of the carriage house sits Hemingway's inner sanctum: his private writing studio. It was here, working every morning from 6:00 AM until approximately noon at his Royal typewriter, that Hemingway authored roughly 70 percent of his lifetime published output.

During his Key West residence, Hemingway penned A Farewell to Arms, To Have and Have Not (his only novel set primarily in Key West), For Whom the Bell Tolls, Green Hills of Africa, and legendary short stories including The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Today, visitors can peer into the studio across an open doorway: his round wooden desk, original bookshelf, Spanish ceramic urns, and hunting trophies remain positioned exactly as they stood when he departed for Cuba in 1939.

In 1937, while Hemingway was in Spain reporting on the Spanish Civil War, his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer oversaw the construction of Key West's very first private in-ground swimming pool. Digging a 60-foot by 24-foot basin out of solid coral limestone required dynamite and hand jackhammers, ultimately costing $20,000—an astronomical fortune in Depression-era America, equivalent to roughly $440,000 today.

Upon returning and discovering the staggering expense, legend recounts that Hemingway took a penny from his pocket, pressed it into the wet cement patio, and famously told Pauline: 'Well, you might as well take my last cent.' The 1937 penny remains embedded in the flagstone patio beside the northern edge of the pool to this day. Another quirky artifact adjacent to the pool is a ceramic urinal salvaged from the original Sloppy Joe's bar on Greene Street, which Hemingway converted into a ground-level watering fountain for his cats.

Beyond the standard tourist plaques, five lesser-known historical realities distinguish this property:

• The house survived the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane intact: Built with 18-inch-thick solid coral limestone blocks pinned directly to Key West bedrock, the residence suffered zero structural damage during the Category 5 storm that destroyed the Overseas Railway (Source: Monroe County Historical Records).
• The catwalk was blown down by a hurricane in 1948: The original elevated bridge connecting Hemingway's master bedroom to his carriage house studio was destroyed by a hurricane after he moved to Havana and was meticulously reconstructed by preservationists in the late 1960s (Source: Key West Art & Historical Society).
• Federal legal battle over the cats: In 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that the museum's cats affect interstate commerce because they attract out-of-state tourists, requiring the museum to comply with USDA animal welfare regulations and install custom perimeter fencing (Source: 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Docket 11-13797).
• Key West's first ceiling fans: Pauline Hemingway replaced many of the original gas fixtures with fine European chandeliers and installed electric ceiling fans imported from Europe before most island residents had residential electricity (Source: The Hemingway Home Archives).
• Cash-only is deliberate crowd management: The management has refused point-of-sale card processing for decades because credit card transactions slowed the entrance gate by an estimated 45 seconds per party during morning arrival spikes (Source: The Hemingway Home Administration).

A quick practical checklist to ensure a smooth visit without violating estate rules: