The house is 1851 Spanish Colonial limestone, quarried from the lot it sits on. It came to the Hemingways in 1931 as a wedding-money gift from Pauline's uncle, a wreck with good bones and a yard full of shade.
The writing room was over the carriage house, deliberately separate from the household. He wrote standing or seated at a small table in the mornings, then closed the door and went to the water. A catwalk was later run from the main house's second floor so he could reach the studio without passing anyone.
It is the single most useful piece of residential design in American letters: a door you can shut, twenty feet from your own kitchen.
Memories attached to this place
“The cats are the fifth or sixth generation now. Everyone on the street has one with extra toes.”
“My grandfather helped dig the pool. He said the hardest work of his life was in a rich man's backyard.”
“You could always tell the writing was going badly because the shutters upstairs stayed closed past noon.”
Timeline
- 1851Built for marine architect Asa Tift from stone quarried on site.
- 1931Bought as a ruin and restored.
- 1938A 65-foot pool is dug by hand — reportedly the island's first.
- 1968Declared a National Historic Landmark.
Great work needs a room with a lock, not a view.
