Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum

Hours, tickets and tours

The Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day of the year. Tickets are sold at the main gate at 907 Whitehead Street. The museum says reservations are not required.

• Adults: $19
• Children ages 6–12: $7
• Children age 5 and under: free
• Credit-card and mobile-wallet payments: 3% transaction fee
• Guided tour: included with admission
• Tour length: about 20–30 minutes
• Tours begin about every 15 minutes; the first begins at 9:15 a.m.

These details were checked against the museum on 14 August 2026. Prices and operating rules can change, so use the official rates page before travel. Do not buy a supposed reserved time from an unrelated seller: the museum states that it sells tickets at the gate and does not require reservations.

How long to allow and what the visit includes

Allow about 60 to 90 minutes for a first visit. The included guided tour takes 20 to 30 minutes, but the house makes more sense if you also leave time for the writing studio, garden, swimming pool and cats. A visitor interested mainly in the headline facts can finish sooner; a reader of Hemingway or Pauline Pfeiffer will have more to examine.

• Main house: family rooms, furnishings and objects associated with the Key West years.
• Writing studio: the separate upstairs workspace reached from the garden side.
• Garden and pool: the major alteration Pauline Pfeiffer supervised in 1937–1938.
• Cats: a resident colony that the museum says numbers nearly sixty.
• Guided tour: the clearest way to separate documented history from the stories that accumulated around Hemingway.

The house is in Key West's walkable Old Town, several blocks from Duval Street and across from the lighthouse. Heat and rain matter because part of the visit is outdoors. Carry water, and avoid scheduling the museum so tightly that a short wait at the gate makes the rest of the day late.

Who lived here, and when

Ernest Hemingway first reached Key West in April 1928 with Pauline Pfeiffer. In 1931, Pauline's uncle Gus Pfeiffer bought the Whitehead Street property for the couple. They lived here with their sons Patrick and Gregory during the 1930s.

The Key West years were not an isolated retreat. Hemingway fished with local friends, bought the boat Pilar in 1934, travelled to Cuba and reported on the Spanish Civil War. The house was one base in a life that moved repeatedly between Florida, Cuba, Spain, Africa and the American West.

The marriage ended in 1940. Hemingway moved to Cuba with Martha Gellhorn, while Pauline kept the Key West property and continued raising Patrick and Gregory there. Calling the building only Hemingway's house hides the person who stayed, paid for major changes and preserved the family home after he left.

What Hemingway wrote during the Key West years

The strongest connection is To Have and Have Not, published in 1937. The novel uses Key West, the Florida Straits and the economic pressure of the Depression as more than scenery. Local boats, workers and smuggling routes became part of its material.

National Park Service documentation says Hemingway worked at the property on “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “A Way You'll Never Be.” The same nomination says it is likely that he wrote some of For Whom the Bell Tolls here. “Likely” matters: it is evidence of a serious association, not proof that the whole novel was written in the studio.

The museum also connects the opening Key West period with A Farewell to Arms. That novel was already well advanced, and Hemingway worked on it in several places. A useful house museum should show how writing moved with him instead of turning every book into a product of one desk.

The pool is Pauline Pfeiffer's story too

The swimming pool was built in 1937–1938, while Hemingway was often away reporting on the Spanish Civil War. Pauline supervised the work. The museum gives its original cost as $20,000, an enormous expense beside the price of the house itself.

The pool measures roughly 24 by 60 feet and reaches 10 feet at its deepest point. Building it displaced Hemingway's boxing ring and required a difficult excavation into Key West's coral rock. It originally used salt water before conversion to fresh water in the 1940s.

A famous story says Hemingway returned, complained that Pauline had spent his last cent and pressed a penny into wet concrete. A penny remains embedded near the pool. The museum itself says the spoken outburst may be apocryphal. The concrete penny is real; the exact dialogue is not documented with the same certainty.

When was the house built? The sources disagree

The museum dates the house to 1851 and identifies Asa Tift, a marine architect and salvage operator, as its builder. That date appears widely in visitor material.

The Library of Congress Historic American Buildings Survey also identifies Asa Tift but records initial construction as about 1876. Its file includes measured drawings, written documentation and twelve photographs made for the federal survey.

The two dates cannot both describe the same initial construction in the same way. This page therefore does not silently choose one. The safe conclusion is that the limestone house is a nineteenth-century Key West building associated with Asa Tift, with its exact construction date disputed by two institutional sources.

The six-toed cats: what is documented and what is family lore

The museum says nearly sixty cats live on the property and that about half show polydactyly, meaning they have more than the usual number of toes. The cats are named after famous people and receive regular veterinary care.

Museum tradition says a ship's captain gave Hemingway a white six-toed cat named Snow White and that some present cats descend from her. The genetic trait and the current colony are observable. The exact Snow White origin story belongs to the museum's account and should be understood as family lore unless earlier documentation is found.

Visitors should not pick up or feed the cats. They live throughout the grounds and may enter the house, so anyone with a serious cat allergy should contact the museum before planning the visit.

Accessibility and practical limits

The museum's public rates and contact pages do not currently give a detailed, room-by-room accessibility guide. The property includes a two-story historic house, a separate upstairs writing studio and outdoor paths, so access is not identical in every part of the visit.

If stairs, step-free entry, seating, accessible restrooms or a service animal affect the visit, call the museum at 305-294-1136 before going. A direct answer from staff is more useful than assuming that a general accessibility label guarantees access to every historic room.

The address is 907 Whitehead Street, Key West, Florida 33040. Tickets are sold at the gate. Old Town parking is limited, so walking, cycling, a taxi or local transit may be simpler than depending on a space beside the museum.

Official planning links

• Official hours, prices and tour information

  Check current admission, payment rules, tour timing and closures before travel.

• Official museum history

  The museum's account of Hemingway, Pauline Pfeiffer and the Key West years.

• Official architecture, garden and pool history

  Dimensions, construction history and the museum's careful note about the penny legend.

• Library of Congress HABS record

  Twelve archival photographs, measured drawings, written history and federal survey data.

• National Park Service record

  National Register identification and the property's recognized literary significance.