Happy Birthday, Hemingway!

Today is my birthday. I share this day with a favorite author, Ernest Hemingway, who was born July 21, 1899 and died July 2, 1961. Hemingway was a master of the short story. He used language so precisely, writing only what was necessary to tell a tale. Despite the spare prose, the reader feels the presence of what has been left unsaid. Whether he was describing war, a bull fight or a conversation between a man and woman, Hemingway’s writing was always elegant. In honor of his birthday, I share some photos of Hemingway’s homes.

Here is a photo of Ernest Hemingway’s boyhood home in Oak Park, Illinois. A couple with two young sons bought the house earlier this month for $525,000. The house currently is divided into three apartments, but the couple plans to restore it to a single-family home as it was in 1906 using Hemingway’s floor plans as a guide.

This is a photo of the house in Key West, Florida where Hemingway lived with his second wife Pauline and their two sons from 1931 to 1940.

Hemingway installed the first in-ground pool in Key West. Having a residential swimming pool was an incredible luxury in 1938, and this one was dug out of solid coral. The final cost was $20,000 (1938 currency).

“ . . .The swimming pool is wonderful - it is very large and the water, from away under the reef, is fairly salt. Also it lights up at night - I find that each underwater bulb is five times the voltage of the one bulb in the light house across the street, so the pool must be visible to Mars - it is wonderful to swim around in a sort of green fire, one’s friends look like luminous frogs . . .” Quote from Pauline Hemingway’s friend, the poet Elizabeth Bishop

Hemingway shot the trophies that are mounted on the wall of the Key West house, which operates as a museum. Photos of the house have been taken from the museum's website.

Photo by Christy Transier

In 1940, Hemingway moved to a home in Cuba called Finca Vigia, meaning “lookout house”. Here is the library in the Cuban house, which is a museum. The photos below have been taken from the museum's website.

“The Cuban people have always respected [sic] famous writer’s choice to live in a modest town, amongst the people he fished with.”

Hemingway’s boat Pilar at Finca Vigia. Pilar was a nickname for Pauline Hemingway.