February 11, 2005: Florida Trip Day 7
	February 9, 2005: Florida Trip Day 5
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Today we are going to visit some places that Fred and I have been before, but which Frank and Joe have not. We'll begin at the Sea Isles Guest House and walk down US-1 towards Duval Street. We go one more block southwest, and then turn southeast towards the Hemingway House.

When we are done there, we will cross the street and tour the Key West Lighthouse.

After that, we will walk further down the street to the "Southernmost Point in the United States," which is really the southernmost point that (1) is in the contiguous 48 states, (2) is on public, not private, property and (3) is accessible without clearance (i.e., not on a military base or other publicly-owned but access-controlled site).

The map at the right will show you the relationship of these various locations.

As we walked south of Duval Street, we came by a lovely Key West home that was made all the more beautiful by the lush tropical plants lining the walk and surrounding the house. Fred found an almost perfect "bird of paradise" flower and another beautiful but unidentified flower. I am sure that Fred would like to spend a lot of time in Key West (and the rest of South Florida) learning more about all the different plants that grow in this most tropical of US locales.

After another couple of blocks of walking, we arrived at the Hemingway House.

Hemingway House

Entering the Hemingway House Grounds

To get into the Hemingway House, it is necessary to buy tickets at a little kiosk that is right outside the front gate, right on the street. After we all purchased our tickets, we entered the walled property and walked up to the front porch and then inside to find out when the next tour would start. As it turned out, we had only about fifteen minutes to wait until another group had formed and a guide was available.

During our wait time, we just wandered around the outside of the house, looking at some of the cats. More about them later. Here is a good picture of Joe on the south side of the house, and here is a good photo of the southwest corner of the house.

The house is not large by today's standards; I suppose that it is somewhere around 2500 square feet on two floors. It was built in 1849-1851, and was modernized when Ernest Hemingway lived in it from 1931 when it was given to Ernest and Pauline Hemingway as a wedding present from her uncle, until 1939, when the couple divorced. Hemingway visited only sporadically after that until his death in 1961.

The Hemingway House Tour

It was only a short wait until we could begin our tour of the Hemingway House. The tour was much like you might expect. Our tour guide took us from room to room, starting on the first floor and proceeding up to the second. The whole point about having a guide is that you can learn a lot more from his commentary than you ever could just by looking at the furnishings and pictures, and if you'd like to see what I mean, use the player below to watch the movie I made of him:

For example, we learned that Pauline Hemingway came to her marriage with an odd collection- a collection of chandeliers. She had five or six of them installed in the ceilings of various rooms throughout the house. The thumbnails below are some of the different ones she installed; click on the thumbnails to look at them in detail:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

The problem with this was that she had to take down the ceiling fans, whose esthetics she disliked, to do so. As a result, her husband and guests silently cursed her- more so in the summertime.

You'll see more about the Hemingway cats later, but one interesting room on the tour involved one. Midway through the tour, it arrived in Pauline Hemingway's bedroom, where one of the many cats in the house was asleep on the bed. Dead to the world when we all filed in and got situated for the tour guide's commentary, the cat awoke, possibly to listen to an interesting story. But I think the cat realized that this was the same story she'd heard so often in this very room that, well....to see what happened, watch the movie using the player at left.

The tour was really very interesting and informative. The way the house was built, almost every room was a corner room which helped maximize the airflow and keep the rooms cooler. And almost all the rooms, like the living room were filled with interesting Hemingway memorabilia, much of which the tour guide described. Along the way, we would occasionally stop to photograph each other; here are Frank and Joe in front of a Hemingway portrait, and here is Fred in Hemingway's study (which was actually in a separate building behind the main house).

Also, along the way we found a number of interesting decorative touches or pieces of furniture that were worth a snapshot, and I have put thumbnails for some of the best ones below; just click on the thumbnails to view the item in more detail:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Walking Around the Grounds

In between the house tour and the short tour up to Hemingway's Study, we took a walk around the grounds. In the right rear corner of the property, a shaded path leads to the swimming pool that Pauline put in after the Hemingways bought the house. The pool cost $30,000- and that was a fantastic sum in the 1930s. It cost so much that Ernest had the workers embed a dime in the concrete apron at the entry to the pool, telling his cronies that the pool "might as well as cost him his last dime."

Working from the pool around towards the front of the house, the Hemingways built a small lagoon so that they could put a footbridge across it. All around the property there were benches to sit on and enjoy the grounds. The southeast part of the property was shaded by tall palm trees, and working our way around towards the front of the house, Fred took a picture of Frank and Joe with our next destination- the Fort Lauderdale Lighthouse- behind them. You can see that picture here.

Crossing around the front of the house we went over to the other side. Here, rather than the mostly open lawn on the south side of the house, was a lush, tree‑shaded garden with many pathways, arbors and benches spaced throughout. Here is a picture of Frank, Joe and Fred on the garden pathway looking out of the garden back towards the house. As we left the garden, I shot a movie as I walked along out of the garden back towards the stairs up to Hemingway's study; you can watch that movie using the player at right.

As we were walking around the grounds, Fred got some beautiful shots of some of the plants and flowers, and I want to include some of the best ones here. Click on the thumbnails below to view the full-size pictures that he took:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Hemingway's Study

The second item on the tour was a walk up to Hemingway's study, which was in a separate building behind the main house. The crowd followed the guide out of the main house and across a patio, where I got this picture of Fred, Frank and Joe. Just before going up to the study, we ran across one of the many cats (more about them later) that roam the grounds, and Frank made a friend. Then it was up a set of outside stairs and into the study.

Hemingway's study, if the current furnishings accurately reflect the way it looked when he was using it, was very much a man's room- unlike most of the main house. There were books and travel souvenirs all around the room, as well as a desk area where, presumably, he did his writing. In a different view of the room, the guide pointed out a painting that had been done by one of Hemingway's friends of just this room, and you can see that painting in this view of the study. Either the study has been left just as it was, or it has been accurately reproduced and maintained. At least the conservators had this painting to go by, if there was a restoration. Also in the room was the inevitable (it seemed) cat asleep in the chair.

The Polydactyl Cats of Hemingway House

One of the most interesting aspects of Hemingway House, at least to the four of us, was the presence of a large number (I think the current count is around thirty) of cats. But many of these are not just ordinary cats; many of them are "polydactyl" cats.

Polydactylism is the name given to any genetic mutation in which an animal has more than the usual number of digits- whether that be people or cats. People, and cats, of course, usually have five digits on each hand or paw, but many of the cats at Hemingway's home have six or seven digits on front and/or back legs. Although this genetic mutation occurs only very rarely, it is not so rare as to be newsworthy. The condition was originally, one would assume, a mutation, but now there is a recessive gene that can cause it, but it is by no means dominant. This is to say that if one or more of a cat's parents had polydactylism, then it stands a better chance of having the condition, but it is far from a certainty.

I took a movie as I was trying to lift up one of the cat's paws to illustrate the polydactyl condition, and you can watch that movie using the player at right.

There is some controversy about the relationship of these cats to Ernest Hemingway. A popular story has it that Hemingway was given a cat named Snowball that happened to have the condition, and that many of the cats now wandering around the house are descendants of that cat. This account is contradicted by some of Hemingway's family, who state that although Hemingway had cats in Cuba, he only kept peacocks in Key West. These folks denounced the sale of "Hemingway Cats" that the owners of Hemingway House were making. Some years ago, the owners of the house stopped selling the cats.

Anyway, all four of us are fond of felines, so it was a pleasure to keep running into them all over the house and grounds.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

We took a great many pictures of the cats, and it is hard to distill them down to just the best ones, but I have tried. Even so, I ended up with quite a few pictures, so I have chosen to put them in a slideshow to make it easier for you go look through them.

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

I also took a couple of movies of the cats that turned out decently, and you can watch those two movies by using the two movie players below:

Well, that was about it for out tour of Hemingway House. It was a little disconcerting to find out later that many of the furnishings and things in the house were not actually the furnishings that Hemingway and/or his wife Pauline used. It appears, from an Internet search, that the house was sold to its current owners empty, and that the current owners refurnished it with period pieces, close duplicates of items on record as having been owned by Hemingway, or fixtures similar to those that Hemingway had. Even the cats are in question. The only thing that isn't in question is the house itself and the grounds, and the tour was worth it just for that. Just before we departed for some lunch, Fred got a final picture of Frank and Joe on the south balcony with our after-lunch destination, the Key West Lighthouse, in the background.

Key West Lighthouse

We finished up with the Hemingway House close to noon, and so before we went across to the Key West Lighthouse, we walked three blocks down the street and found a small coffee bar and restaurant for lunch. They had a patio out back, and we grabbed a table there. Here's Fred's picture of the rest of us at lunch. One oddity about the restaurant patio was that, as is true of quite a bit of Key West, there are chickens running around loose. Why, I am not exactly sure.

After lunch, we walked back down the street towards the Hemmingway House, and just across the street from it is the Key West Lighthouse. The lighthouse is still used, although it is just for effect; now it is a museum and a place for tourists to come. When we got inside, we took the spiral staircase up to the top. Fred likes spiral staircases, and he took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures as we were going up it- one of Joe and one of me.

Once we got to the top and walked out on the catwalk that surrounds the tower at the top, there were really great views in all directions. They would have been even better had it not been cloudy, but they were pretty good nonetheless. Looking northwest, we could see Key West Harbor and a couple of cruise ships that were docked there. Just below us is a resort, and you'd have been able to see people out by the pool if it had been a nicer day.

Up here at the top, Fred used Key West as a backdrop for picture of me, and I used the same backdrop for a picture of Frank and Joe. While I was taking a picture of the two of them, Fred got an excellent aerial view of Hemmingway House.

The last thing I did before we headed downstairs was to wait until everyone was off the catwalk and then walk entirely around it filming a 360-degree panorama of Key West. I think the film turned out well, and you can watch it using the movie player below:

At the base of the lighthouse, there is a museum, and we spent some time wandering around inside. The huge glass lenses that give the lighthouse its penetrating power are amazing constructions, and they have been available for a century and a half, now. The museum contained one of these glass lenses, the successor to which is currently in operation at the top. The lighthouse used to have a smaller lens, and you can see one like it behind Joe and I. While the guys spent some more time in the museum, I went outside and sat on the grass next to a sleeping cat (perhaps a visitor from across the street), which is where Fred snapped this picture of the cat and I.

A Walking Tour

Leaving the Key West Lighthouse, we walked all the way to the end of the street, going southeast. There we found the marker for, theoretically, the "Southernmost Point" in the continental United States. Actually, that is a misnomer, as you can clearly see from the aerial view (in which north is at the top) that only a few feet away there is a point of land that extends further south than the corner where the southernmost point marker is. I have since learned that in determining the southernmost point, private property is excluded (as well as land owned by the government where access by private individual is restricted or prohibited.

In any event, unless you look at an aerial view, you're not going to know about the discrepancy in claims. We've been to this point before with Lowery and Ron Drew, but this was a first time for Frank and Joe. So here are two pictures to record the event- one of Frank and Joe at the Southernmost Point and one of me and Fred at the Southernmost Point.

From this marker, we turned towards Duval Street, but had only gone a short ways before we came to the Southernmost House (in the continental United States). The claim here is less encumbered; it is the southernmost private dwelling.

From here, we turned towards the Harbor on Duval Street, and walked along a section of it that we had not yet covered. There were lots of museums and shops here; it was less "touristy" than down by the harbor. I actually stopped into one place and found two buffalo items to buy and have shipped home, to be used for some future birthday or Christmas gift for Fred.

A ways up Duval, we cut back over to where we had lunch and walked up this more quiet street towards the harbor.

Key West Harbor

Our last stop in Key West today was to revisit the harbor area that we'd been too late to see much of the night before. We had walked from the Southernmost House along Whitehead Street down to the Key West Museum. There was a small admission, but the museum had been recommended, and it turned out that we spent almost two hours there looking at all the exhibits and artifacts related to the history of Key West. By this time, we were ready to sit down for a while, and so we spent some relaxing time on the museum porch before heading over to the harbor.

This area is probably the most touristy of Key West, not the least reason for which is the fact that the cruise ships tie up at the dock nearby, providing thousands of people a day access to everything right around here. We passed by a place called the Historeum, but we didn't go in. We did look around in some of the shell shops, one of which had this old sailboat out front. And nearby was a sailors and seamen's sculpture/memorial that was certainly interesting.

Dusk found us standing on the dock looking at one of the cruise ships that was still here (they usually sail at night, rather than stay docked in port at night); this one was already boarding its passengers and getting ready to leave. Out in the harbor itself there was a lot of boat traffic.

We headed back to the guest house to relax for a while before going out to dinner, and in the evening we went back down to Duval Street to see what the local nightlife was like.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	February 11, 2005: Florida Trip Day 7
	February 9, 2005: Florida Trip Day 5
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