Ernest Hemingway’s Cats in Key West: Why They Have Six Toes and Where the Legend Started
At the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida, there is an entire colony of unusual residents – around 50 to 60 cats, many of whom have six or even seven toes on their paws instead of the usual five.
In short: the famous polydactyl “Hemingway cats” do not live in Cuba, as many online posts mistakenly claim, but at the writer’s former estate in Key West, United States. Nearly all of them trace their lineage back to a white six-toed cat named Snow White, given to Hemingway in the 1930s.
Ernest Hemingway was well known for his love of cats. While he also kept dozens of them at his Finca Vigia villa in Cuba, the famous legend of the six-toed “Hemingway cats” is tied specifically to his Florida house at 907 Whitehead Street.
Where the Six-Toed Cats Came From
According to the museum’s history, in the 1930s a ship’s captain named Stanley Dexter gave Hemingway a white kitten with six toes on its front paws. Hemingway’s sons named her Snow White. Sailors had long considered polydactyl cats lucky charms and prized mousers at sea, since their broader paws helped them keep their balance on pitching decks.
How Many Cats Live at the Museum Today and How They Are Named
Today, roughly 50 to 60 cats live permanently across the lush grounds of the museum. A few notable details about the colony:
- Not all look six-toed: visible extra toes appear on roughly half of the cats, yet almost the entire colony carries the dominant polydactyly gene, so six-toed kittens are regularly born even to normal-pawed parents.
- Famous namesakes: Hemingway started the tradition of naming pets after real-life celebrities, and museum staff still carry it on (residents have included cats named Pablo Picasso, Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, and others).
- The long dispute with the USDA: in 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture demanded the museum license its cats as “exhibition animals” just like zoos and circuses. After nearly a decade of legal battles, the cats remained in their Key West home under the care of a resident veterinarian.
Long after the writer’s death, the property became a private museum, yet the feline pride is still treated as the rightful owners of the house. If you ever find yourself down in the Florida Keys, stopping by the garden to meet Snow White’s descendants is a great way to see a living literary legend up close.