Key West Benders - Ear Benders, That Is

At Ernest Hemingway’s house in Key West, would you ever expect to find Marilyn Monroe, Pablo Picasso, Charlie Chaplin and Audrey Hepburn all at once? Believe it or not, it’s possible.

Hemingway’s house was turned into a museum after his death in 1961, but it’s like no museum you’ve ever seen. There are dozens and dozens of cats that roam both the house and property, all named after famous people such as the ones above. The very first “Hemingway cat” had six toes on its front paws, and a lot of the cats on the property still do.

The cats drink out of an old stone urinal in the backyard that Hemingway found in a gutter one night, thrown out by his favorite bar, Sloppy Joe’s, and he dragged it home as a souvenir. If you go to the house today you can still see the cats drinking from that urinal.

At that house, Hemingway built the first swimming pool in Key West. When he had to leave to report on the Spanish Civil War, his wife Pauline took over, spending $20,000 on the project. The purchase price for the entire house was just $8,000! When Hemingway came home to this news he handed his wife a penny and told her she might as well take his last cent. Which she did. She pressed it into the still wet cement around the pool and there it remains today.

One last rumor is that Hemingway bought that particular house because it’s directly across from the Key West Lighthouse, whose beacon he used as a means of finding his way home after a long night out.

A long night out usually involved several rounds of drinks at what is now Capt. Tony’s Saloon, but it was called Sloppy Joe’s when Hemingway spent his time there. Before the place became a bar it was the island’s first morgue. It conveniently housed a “hanging tree” for murderers and pirates. The tree still stands inside the saloon today. Rumor has it that when they were building a new foundation for the bar they found 16 skeletons in the ground surrounding it. In the pool room still stands a tombstone where the coroner buried his daughter.

Stories have been told by tourists that they have seen an image of a woman in a nightgown when they were in the bar or felt someone sitting on the barstool next to them. In fact, a woman was hanged there for killing her husband and child and they say she still lurks the premises wearing the same nightgown she was hanged in.

A tale that took place in the 1930s involves Doctor Karl Tanzler, a radiologist at the U.S. Marine Hospital in Key West. He fell in love with a beautiful Cuban woman who had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, which eventually claimed her life. During the time she was in the hospital, Tanzler showered the woman with jewelry and clothing and allegedly professed his love to her, but she was a married woman and there was no evidence to show that she returned any of his affection.

When she died, Tanzler paid for the funeral and an elaborate mausoleum, which he visited almost every night. He even had a telephone installed because he believed that he could speak to her spirit through it.

One night, Tanzler sneaked her body out of the mausoleum and brought it to his house. Because he was a doctor, he was able to replace body parts with wax or fabric or plaster of paris as they deteriorated and used perfume and disinfectant to cover any odors. He even used a wig so that she would have a full head of hair. Tanzler was so in love with the corpse that he slept with it every night.

Years later, the woman’s sister found out about Tanzler’s activities and notified authorities. Tanzler was charged with destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization, but the case was dropped because the statute of limitations had expired so he was released. The body was re-buried in an unmarked grave at the cemetery so that Tanzler could not repeat his actions, and not even the family was informed of the location.

On a lighter note, Key Westers have their own way of getting what they want. Back in 1982, the U.S. Immigration Department had put up a roadblock to make sure that non-Americans were not sneaking into the country by landing on the Keys and driving up to the mainland. Considering cars were being searched for hidden people all the way down to the glove compartments, many suspected this was a disguised effort to stop smuggling from the islands.

Tourism, the Keys primary source of economic income, was severely suffering and Keys officials petitioned to have the roadblock removed. Their request was denied. Key Westers saw only one way out. They seceded from the U.S. and the Conch Republic was born.

Armed only with stale loaves of Cuban bread with which to defend their newly formed republic, they fought off the Coast Guard in vain. They finally admitted defeat, surrendered to the U.S. and then applied for foreign aid. The national media attention that the affair drew was so vast and embarrassing for the immigration department that the roadblock was quietly removed and traffic resumed, unobstructed, on the only road to Key West.

There are too many interesting facts to mention here that you might not find in guide books, but here are a few that you might find interesting:

1: The marker denoting the country’s southernmost point is incorrectly placed. The spot is actually on Navy property nearby, but since civilians are not allowed there, the city put it as close to the real spot as they could.

2: The secret ingredient in the famous pancakes at a certain restaurant in Bahama Village is beer.

3: If you start walking from #1 Duval Street and go 14 blocks all the way to the other end, you have just walked from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.