http://www.grnreport.com 843.270.5611 Debbie Turner
Key West, Florida: February 7, 2008, Steve and Debbie Turner, Global Resorts Network platinum Members and team leaders are on vacation in Key West, Florida where the water temperature is 81 degrees and turquoise in color. A casual stroll down Duvall St, led them to just a block away from the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum. Located at 907 Whitehead Street and nestled in the heart of Old Town Key West, this unique property was home to one of America’s most honored and respected authors.
Ernest Hemingway lived and wrote here for more than ten years. Calling Key West home, he found solace and great physical challenge in the turquoise waters that surround this tiny island.
Step back in time and visit the rooms and gardens that witnessed the most prolific period of this Nobel Prize winner’s writing career. Educated tour guides give insightful narratives and are eager to answer questions. Wander through the lush grounds and enjoy the whimsy the 47 cats that currently live here.
Hemingway, referred to as Papa, was born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, and died in 1961, at the age of 61 in Ketchum, Idaho. In those 61 years he learned to live life to its fullest: he hunted big game in Africa, fished for giant Marlin in the Gulf Stream, skied the Alps, covered wars as a correspondent, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Upon Hemingway’s death in 1961, his estate sold the house to Mrs. Bernice Dickson, a local Key West businesswoman. She lived here in the main house until she opened it as a museum in 1964, when she moved into the carriage house in back of the main house. The home was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968 and remains today the property of Mrs. Dickson’s family. The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum is a significant address on any Key West itinerary.
The house was built in 1851 by Asa Tift, a marine architect and salvage wrecker, and became Ernest Hemingway’s home in 1931. The house still contains the furniture that he and his family used. The cats about the home and grounds are descendants of the cats he kept while he lived in the house, including many extra-toed (polydactyls), like the one Papa Hemingway loved.
Some highlights from each room in the house include:
In the living room, you’ll find some of the furnishings that Papa’s wife Pauline collected while she lived in Paris and had shipped to Key West when she and Papa bought the house. In the room across the hall from the living room the is a red leather Cardinal’s chair by the door — it is reported to have been used as a prop in the Broadway production of The Fifth Column, Hemingway’s only full-length play.
In the dining room is Pauline’s 18th century Spanish walnut dining table. The chandelier is the centerpiece of her collection; a hand-blown glass chandelier from the famous island of Murano, near Venice, Italy.
Pauline created a small breakfast room, she had workmen split the dining room which is why the fireplace in the dining room is tucked in a corner of the room. In the breakfast room you can look through to the modern kitchen that Pauline also had installed, complete with a GE refrigerator. Originally the kitchen was in a separate building from the main house and the present kitchen was a back sitting room.
The master bedroom at the top of the stairs is a large bed which is actually two twin beds that were ordered from St. Louis, where Pauline was born.
There are first editions of Hemingway’s books in the chests along with boots and saddlebags from his Western trips in what’s known as The Boys’ Room, where Patrick and Gregory lived.
The building where Papa had his writing studio was originally a carriage house. The studio remains as Papa used it — his Royal typewriter and Cuban cigar-maker’s chair, the mementoes he collected — all are still in place.
Steve and Debbie found the staff and the tour guides very friendly and knowledgeable and well worth our $12 per adult admission ticket. You are free to wander around the grounds and home at your leisure or participate in a tour which runs about every 15 minutes. Taking pictures and videos are allowed. For additional information, visit their website at www.hemingwayhome.com
If you enjoy traveling, belonging to a luxury travel club will save you thousands allowing for more trips than you ever thought possible.
For details on the Global Resorts Networt very affordable lifetime travel club membership and home based business opporutnity, visit www.grnreport.com. If you would like a product demonstration and to learn more, contact Debbie Turner at 843.270.5611. An alternative site for information www.YourTravelHomeBusiness.com.
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