Bob Hoover in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette:
“Finca Vigia” or Lookout Farm was the only house Hemingway owned outright. He bought it in 1940. From its full staff of servants to its secluded swimming pool, the “finca“ fitted Hemingway like his favorite “guayabera,” the traditional Cuban shirt.
The writer and his fourth wife, Mary, sailed from Cuba July 25, 1960, leaving behind the “silver, Venetian glassware, eight-thousand books … and Ernest’s small collection of paintings, one Paul Klee, two Juan Gris, five Andre Masson, one Braque …” along with 70 cats and at least nine dogs.
Hemingway never returned. He killed himself with a double-barreled shotgun blast July 2, 1961, at his other home, in Ketchum, Idaho.
The government of Cuba, however, refuses to let “Papa’s” presence on the island die. After appropriating the property in 1961, it continues to promote Hemingway as a cultural icon, casting him as a mythical figure on a level just below Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
More here.