Hemingway's House Belongs to the Cats Now

907 Whitehead Street. Key West's most visited attraction. The cats are why. Fifty-some polydactyl cats — descendants (allegedly) of a six-toed cat given to Hemingway by a ship captain — run the property with the calm authority of animals who know their paws have more toes than yours.

The house is a two-story Spanish Colonial from 1851, coral rock. Hemingway lived here 1931 to 1939, the years he wrote To Have and Have Not, Green Hills of Africa, and For Whom the Bell Tolls. His writing studio above the carriage house still has the typewriter, bookshelves, and a mounted gazelle head because he felt like it. The cats sleep on the beds, lounge on the desk, and pose for photos with generational expertise.

The pool cost $20,000 in 1938 — four times what the house cost. When he saw the bill, he pressed a penny into the wet cement and told his wife she might as well have his last cent. The penny is still there. Dramatic, generous, petty, and permanent. The most Hemingway detail in the whole place.