Key West Live Cam

The wall is the first thing you see. It's odd. The courses of brick rise and fall gently rather than follow a straight line. The mortar between the bricks looks smeared on, not smoothed and pointed the way an experienced mason would do it.

But Hemingway was delighted when his handyman, Toby Bruce, built the wall in 1935. It was solid enough to keep tourists from strolling onto his Key West, Florida, property and tall enough to keep them from snooping on him while he enjoyed a drink and a cigar with celebrity friends on his porch. Public curiosity about Hemingway hasn't waned with time. More than half a century after the author left his house at 907 Whitehead Street with his second marriage in ruins, tourists pour through the gate of the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum at the rate of 500 or more each day. The wall is just a relic. It's okay to come inside.