CubaPLUS Magazine

In the midst of lush tropical vegetation stands Finca Vigía, Ernest Hemingway's Cuban home that treasures fond memories of the American writer.

It was in 1939 that Martha Gelhorn, Hemingway's third wife, discovered the place in the classified ads of a Havana newspaper. In December 1940, Hemingway bought it for 18,500 pesos to make it his most stable residence, which he only left when he went to die in Ketcum, Idaho in 1961.

Now a museum, Finca Vigía is located in the town of San Francisco de Paula, some 15 kilometers from the centre of Havana, and is a place of pilgrimage for all admirers and scholars of the author of For Whom the Bell Tolls.

It was here that Hemingway finished this novel, the result of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, and wrote all of the work that won him the 1954 Nobel Prize: The Old Man and the Sea, as well as Across the River and into the Trees, A Moveable Feast, Islands in the Stream and many of his short stories.

The hacienda is located on a hill where, until well into the 19th century, a Spanish watchtower was located during Cuba's colonial period.

Finca Vigía was the first institution created in the world to disseminate the life and work of this great American author, after his fourth wife, Mary Welsh, fulfilled her husband’s wishes and gave the Cuban government both the property and the writer's personal belongings, now on display to visitors just as he left them.

Finca Vigía is almost four hectares in size and is surrounded by abundant vegetation made up of species typical of Cuban flora. It houses the bungalow, a tower, the swimming pool and the famous yacht, Pilar, which Hemingway had built in 1934 to fish in Cuban waters.

It consists of the main living room, library, dining room, guest room, Mary Welsh's bedroom, the writer's workroom, bathroom and kitchen. The tower, on the left side of the back of the house, was built by Welsh for her husband to work in, but he was never able to work there.

Inside the original building you can see Hemingway's favorite armchair, the dining room that resembles a Spanish tavern, the bullfighting scenes painted by the Iberian painter Roberto Domingo, the owner's hunting trophies, more than 9,000 books, magazines and other publications. Everything can be contemplated from the many terraces surrounding the mansion.

Cuba, the country to which he dedicated his Nobel Prize and the medal he was awarded in Stockholm, remembers Hemingway in every place where he left indelible traces, especially in Finca Vigía, a space where his presence seems to deny the final shot.