The Pilar — The Hemingway Home & Museum (2024)

FAQs

Why did Hemingway name boat Pilar? ›

It was acquired in April 1934 from Wheeler Shipbuilding in Brooklyn, New York, for $7,495. [1] "Pilar" was a nickname for Hemingway's second wife, Pauline, and also the name of the woman leader of the partisan band in his 1940 novel The Spanish Civil War, For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Hemingway's exploits at sea earned him a reputation as a founding father of sportfishing, and he was inducted into the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame posthumously in 1998. Today, the original Pilar is on display at the Museo Ernest Hemingway in Finca Vigía, Cuba, Hemingway's former home near Havana.

As well as his house, the bars where he drank and other establishments draw heavily on his continued appeal. Patrick, Gregory and their father's widow, Mary, sold the house to Bernice and Jack Daniel in 1961, the year the writer killed himself. The house has been a museum and tourist attraction for 32 years.

Hemingway was rumored to have as many as 150 cats between his homes in Key West and Cuba. Today you'll find 56 cats—most believed to be Snow White's descendants—at the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum on Key West's Whitehead Street, just a few blocks from the southernmost tip of the continental USA.

After Hemingway's death in July of that year, his widow gave the ship to Gregorio Fuentes who had served as her captain. Fuentes also served as the basis for the character Santiago, in The Old Man and The Sea and passed away in 2002 at the age of 104.

Pilar is the gypsy mujer of Pablo. She has been with him for several years, and one of the purposes she serves in the book is to give the reader background information.

Hadley settled into married life as a wife and mother, but trouble was not far away. She and Hem met the charming Pfeiffer sisters. Although initially Hemingway thought Jinny was the more attractive, it was the petite Pauline, a writer for Paris Vogue, who ultimately captured his attention.

It is common knowledge that Hemingway was an avid outdoorsman, but the literary man's man ultimately refused to fly fish for trout. This is not because he was in pursuit of bigger game fish, like the giant marlin he so eloquently depicted in The Old Man and the Sea.

Today, Pilar is a museum boat at the former Hemingway mansion of Finca Vigia in the Cuban capital of Havana. It was eventually handed over to Gregorio Fuentes (1897-2002), the sailor who perhaps inspired the fictional figures of Santiago (The Old Man and the Sea, 1952) and Eddie (Islands in the Stream, 1970).

Mary Welsh lasted the longest — seventeen tumultuous and rocky years — and her endurance was rewarded with inheriting all of Hemingway's literary and physical properties.

Where did Ernest Hemingway live most of his life? ›

Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s.

Final Resting Place

Although he traveled the world and had homes in Cuba and Key West, Hemingway is buried, surrounded by friends and family, in the Ketchum Cemetery. The Wood River Valley was a refuge for Hemingway and now, his final resting place.

Perhaps you've heard of polydactyl cats, commonly called Hemingway cats. Nicknames for these kitties also include mitten cats, boxing cats, conch cats, mitten-foot cats, snowshoe cats, six-fingered cats, thumb cats and Cardi-cats.

Although the Museum advocates spaying and neutering animals, they do keep some of the cats unaltered so they can have one or two litters each year to continue the lineage. However, the majority of cats at the house and on the island are fixed.

Ernest Hemingway, who may well be the greatest living American novelist and short-story writer, rarely comes to New York. He spends most of his time on a farm, the Finca Vigia, nine miles outside Havana, with his wife, a domestic staff of nine, fifty-two cats, sixteen dogs, a couple of hundred pigeons, and three cows.

Over the past 70 years Santana has been sailed by several owners but for 13 of these it was Humphrey Bogart who had the pleasure of calling this yacht his very own. No matter how many owners there may be, “Santana” always be known as 'Bogie's Boat'.

Age - Hemingway apparently thought enough of the man's age to include the descriptive text 'old' in the title. It could simply have been The Man and the Sea or The Fisherman and the Sea, but he took care in describing the man, first, by his age.

This side became known as larboard, or "the loading side." Over time, larboard—too easily confused with starboard—was replaced with port. After all, this was the side that faced the port, allowing supplies to be ported aboard by porters.