[The Ernest Hemingway House] is a privately owned and operated business that has brilliantly capitalized on three things in the following order: people love cats, people love Ernest Hemingway, and Ernest Hemingway loved cats... In a 1994 interview with the Miami Herald, Patrick Hemingway stated the cats in the picture were his neighbors' who wrote in to the paper to confirm. The cat myth began with Bernice Dickson, who bought the Hemingway house in 1964 and opened the estate as a tourist attraction. At some point she started breeding and selling six-toed cats, even sending them through the mail, and claming, "they are a special Asiatic breed that Mr. Hemingway had when he was here."
--A.N. Devers for Lapham's Quarterly, "House Hunters."
2 comments:
After 50 years, the cats are enough of the Hemingway House mythology for me. I have visited his house in Key WEst, and the cats certainly add to the ambiance. I love cat sanctuaries as well as Hemingway's work, and it's delightful to get snippets of both at once.
We just adopted an eight year old six toed calico cat in December. ~Jen
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