Tang Xiaoxian: Hemingway's former residence in Cuba, Lookout Villa

Tang Xiaoxian: Hemingway's former residence in Cuba, Lookout Villa Phoenix City Tang Xiaoxian The famous American writer Hemingway spent one-third of his life in Cuba. because…

Phoenix City Tang Xiaoxian

The famous American writer Hemingway spent one-third of his life in Cuba. Because of the long-term U.S. blockade and embargo against Cuba, little is known about his life and residence. In 1928, Hemingway visited Cuba for the first time and stayed at the "Two Worlds" Hotel in Havana. He had a good impression of Havana's environment. From 1932 to 1939, Hemingway stayed in this hotel every time he visited Cuba. Room 511 became his exclusive room, and the rent was two dollars a day. Hemingway's wife at the time, Martha, did not like staying in hotels and found an advertisement for a manor to rent in the newspaper, so she persuaded her husband to change his residence. In 1939, Hemingway rented Lookout Mountain Villa on a mountain fifteen kilometers southeast of Havana for a monthly rent of one hundred pesos (equivalent to the U.S. dollar). A year later, he bought the property rights of the villa for 18,500 pesos. Hemingway lived here from 1939 until returning to the United States in July 1960. He completed such masterpieces as "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Old Man and the Sea" at Lookout Mountain Villa. In 1953, Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The award was "for his mastery of the art of narrative, prominently displayed in his recent work "The Old Man and the Sea," and also for his influence on contemporary style." Lookout Villa is a beautiful Moorish-style residence covering an area of ​​four hectares, surrounded by lush shrubs and mango trees, with fruit gardens, pastures and various exotic tropical plants. In addition to the main house, the villa also has a four-story white tower-like building with a platform and a swimming pool. In 1962, one year after Hemingway shot himself, Lookout Mountain was presented to the Cuban government by his widow, Mary Hemingway, and became the Hemingway Museum. There are more than 22,000 items collected here, including books, letters, photos, videos, prey, weapons, sporting goods and fishing gear, including more than 9,000 books collected by Hemingway during his lifetime, more than 800 records, mainly jazz music, about 2,000 letters and more than 3,000 photos. For fifty years, the Cuban government lacked financial resources and failed to properly repair Lookout Mountain Villa. The U.S. government also argued that its involvement in protecting Hemingway's former residence would promote tourism and business in Cuba, and opposed experts and funded the restoration of Lookout Mountain Villa, which was in danger due to marine climate erosion. After the efforts of many people in the United States and Cuba, the project to restore Hemingway's former residence in Cuba and the cultural relics in his former residence was launched more than ten years ago. The first payment of US$75,000 was provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. Relevant units of the United States and Cuba also signed an agreement that allows American museum professionals and Cuban counterparts to cooperate in the restoration and preservation of all cultural relics and materials at Lookout Mountain Villa; documents and materials are allowed to be scanned, photographed into microfilm, and made into electronic versions for the Kennedy Library, with the original documents and materials remaining in Cuba. So far, the interior furnishings of Lookout Villa are as they were before, and everything is original. As one archaeologist put it, it was an unexcavated tomb. The people who enter this house are limited to a few Cuban scholars who have made scientific research results and invited distinguished guests. Tourists who come to the Lookout Villa are, in most cases, only allowed to look inside from the open windows. In this way, academic research and tourism can coexist at the same time. In the house, there are almost twenty religious artifacts from Africa and Afro-Cuban Santa Teresa, one of which is a kapok tree root. In St. Teresa, the kapok tree is the home of the god Eurysias. Under the archway into Hemingway's library, a piece of new tree root like Slothus hangs, which is said to prevent sea devils from flying into the house from the air. The library has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books. The collection of books here is the most important part of Hemingway's collection. These books are of high value, some are very old editions, some are rare editions, some are signed by the author, and some of the books where Hemingway made notes in the margins of the pages are all in them. A small striped chamois hide lay on the floor of Hemingway's bedroom. He once typed while standing on a chamois hide for hours. On the wall toward the bathroom hung a new matador hat with thirteen knives stuck above it. There are also decorative agate shells and a walking stick made of the Regla tree given to him by several African leaders of the Wakamba and Masai tribes. The Regla tree is a mystical tree in the African Babague-E religion, and these walking sticks are also related to Changgo, the god of St. Teresa. There are many valuable things hidden in the basement of Lookout Mountain: the first draft of "The Bell Tolls for Water", the proofs of "Across the River and Into the Woods", the medal Hemingway won in the war, two rifles, and twenty-six charming love letters written in Italian by his extramarital confidante in middle age, the young and beautiful Italian aristocrat Adriana Ivansage. Beyond the main house, a shaded path leads to the swimming pool. Next to the swimming pool is the grave of Hemingway's dog, complete with tombstone. The burial places of his many cats were unmarked and believed to be under a tree in the garden outside the dining room door. Across the pool, one of the most talked-about Hemingway artifacts, the Pilar fishing boat, sits on its permanent land dock on the old tennis court. He used the Pilar for fishing trips over the years and used it to search for German submarines during World War II. Tall green bamboo grew around the fishing boat, and the hull turned into a huge termite nest. Termites have been eating away at the old oak plank hull for more than ten years. The exterior of the boat still looks good due to termites eating it from the inside out. The hull is painted glossy black; the mahogany decks in the cabin have faded from the dark green Hemingway painted in the 1940s to the original brown planks. Restoration work on the ship has finally begun.