Last Updated on October 4, 2022
There are more than 100 homes of famous writers open to the public across the U.S...
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
By Dave G. Houser
According to a report from the Pew Research Center, some 77% of American adults said they read at least one book in the past year. Furthermore, 21% claimed to have read 10 or more books.
The latter demographic grabbed our attention, suggesting there are millions of avid bookworms out there. Numerous literary enthusiasts who we figure to be prime candidates for visiting the homes of famous writers.
More than 100 such homes are open to the public in locations across the country. They’re also museums of a sort, dedicated to memorializing and interpreting the lives and works of America’s greatest authors and poets.
Visiting the homes of these literary icons allows a glimpse into how each writer lived, worked and gained his or her inspiration.
Many of them are architectural and historical treasures in their own right, and dozens have been designated National Historic Landmarks. Spanning centuries and genres, here are seven homes that are most representative of America’s greatest wordsmiths.
Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum, Key West, Florida
One of the most popular home of a famous writer is in Key West, Florida. Visitors can feel a palpable presence of one of America’s greatest authors as they tour the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum in Key West, Florida. Hemingway lived in the handsome 19th-century Spanish Colonial-style mansion with his second wife Pauline. And aslo with several six-toed cats from 1931-1940.
It was a productive period for the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winner. There he composed “To Have and Have Not,” “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” and much of “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” They were all written on his well-worn Royal typewriter – that still rests on the writing table in his second-floor studio.
It is one of the best known homes of famous writers. Step into the garden and you’ll likely cross paths with some of the 40 or so feral six-toed cats that still reside on the mansion grounds. They’re said to be descendants of the originals “Papa” Hemingway bred, believing they brought him good luck.
The Hemingway Home and Museum
907 Whitehead Street
Key West, FL 33040
Tel: (305) 294-1136
Margaret Mitchell House, Atlanta, Georgia
Another home of a famous writer is that of Margaret Mitchell. The Mitchell House in Atlanta, Georgia, was home to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist when she penned her runaway hit novel “Gone with the Wind.”
The 1899 Tudor Revival-style structure was known as the Crescent Apartments when Mitchell and her husband John Marsh lived in Apartment 1 on the ground floor from 1925 to 1932.
Now beautifully restored as a historic house museum, it is operated by the non-profit Atlanta History Center. The Mitchell House is a popular tourist attraction in Midtown Atlanta and hosts a variety of author programs and creative writing classes.
The house is also a designated city landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It also contains a visitor center and an extensive exhibit devoted to the 1939 filming of “Gone With the Wind.”
Margaret Mitchell House
979 Crescent Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30309
Tel: (404) 249-7015
William Faulkner House, Oxford, Mississippi
The Faulkner House, also known as Rowan Oak, is the former Oxford, Mississippi home of yet another American literary giant and winner of both Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes.
An alley of cedars flanks a brick walkway leading to the stately white 1844 Greek Revival-style home, which was in dilapidated condition when Faulkner purchased it in 1930.
He spent decades renovating it, surprisingly doing most of the work himself. It is not clear why he named the house Rowan Oak. The rowan tree is not an oak, and it doesn’t grow in Mississippi – so perhaps the name is a product of the author’s vivid imagination, as was mythical Yoknapatawapha County, setting for most of his novels, including “The Sound and the Fury, “ “As I Lay Dying,” and “Light in August.”
Another one of the homes of famous writers, one of the most interesting features in it is the handwritten outline for Faulkner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “A Fable,” penciled on the plaster wall of his study.
Preserved within the house are many of its original furnishings, including the author’s Underwood typewriter and the tiny work desk where he did most of his writing. Following Faulkner’s death in 1962, his daughter sold the house to the University of Mississippi, which maintains the property and operates tours year-round.
The William Faulkner House
916 Old Taylor Road
Oxford, MS 38655
Tel: (662) 234-3284
Mark Twain House and Museum, Hartford, Connecticut
Another one of the homes of famous writers is the Mark Twain House and Museum, which was the Hartford, Connecticut home of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) from 1874 to 1891.
Twain spent some of his happiest and most productive years at this imposing 25-room Victorian Gothic mansion – a home he affectionately said “had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to see us with.”
He also wrote seven major works there, including “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” and “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”
Declared a National Historic Landmark in 1962, the house features Tiffany-designed interiors, a glass conservatory, a grand library and also a handsome billiard room where Twain wrote his famous books.
It was exorbitantly expensive to build and maintain, which contributed to the financial problems that plagued Clemens during his later years and eventually forced him to sell the house in 1903.
Since the mid-70s, the Twain House has been owned and operated by a non-profit foundation. It financed a major renovation of the mansion and a state-of-the-art museum addition that opened in 2003. It features permanent and rotating exhibits, a café, and a 178-seat auditorium for special programs.
The Mark Twain House
385 Farmington Avenue
Hartford, CT 06105
Tel: (860) 247-0998,
Henry Wordsworth Longfellow House, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Following a number of name changes instituted by the National Park Service in recent years, the Cambridge, Massachusetts mansion that served for nearly 50 years as home to noted poet Henry Wordsworth Longfellow is now officially listed as the Longfellow House – Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site. However cumbersome, the current moniker reflects the home’s importance as both a political and literary landmark.
The three-story, Georgian-style home was built by John Vassall in 1759. A British loyalist, Vassall fled Massachusetts at the onset of the Revolutionary War.
General George Washington subsequently occupied the house as his headquarters. It served as his base of operations during the Siege of Boston. Longfellow became the owner in 1843 and lived in the home until his death in 1882.
It was here that Longfellow penned the legendary poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” as well as other classics such as “Evangeline,” “The Song of Hiawatha,” and “A Psalm of Life.”
Managed by the National Park Service, the Longfellow house is strong on authenticity. All furnishings and decorations – forming a collection of almost 30,000 objects – belonged to the Longfellow family.
Henry Wordsworth Longfellow House
489 Congress Street
Portland, ME 04101
Tel: (617) 876-4491
Robert Frost Home, Franconia, New Hampshire
The Frost Place is a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire, where four-time Pulitzer Prize winning poet Robert Frost made his home from 1915 to 1920. During his residence in the snug, white frame 1860 farmhouse, Frost published three highly acclaimed poetry collections, securing his place among America’s finest poets.
The farm’s peaceful, bucolic seclusion seemed to take root in Frost’s poetic voice as evidenced in some of the classic poems he composed there, including “Birches,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and also “The Road Not Taken.”
In 1976, the town of Franconia purchased the farm, restored the house, and reopened it as a museum the following year.
The Frost Place has since thrived as a sanctuary for lovers of poetry, hosting seminars, workshops and an annual poetry festival. In the woods nearby, on the half-mile Poetry Nature Trail, you’ll also find plaques displaying poems written during Frost’s Franconia years.
Robert Frost Home / Frost Place
158 Ridge Road
Franconia, NH 03580
Tel: (603) 823-5510
Editor’s note: There is also another Robert Frost home: Robert Frost Stone House Museum at Bennington College in Shaftsbury, VT
You may also enjoy: Into Mark Twain Country, In Upstate New York / What to Do in Key West, Where Florida is Fun and Funky / Traveling to Atlanta With Kids: Finding Great Things to Do
John Steinbeck House, Salinas, California
Another famous writer’s home is the John Steinbeck House in Salinas, California, the birthplace and childhood home of one of America’s most widely published and best-known authors.
The Queen Anne Victorian-style building in downtown Salinas is operated by the Valley Guild. It’s a non-profit organization that also operates it as a historic house museum and restaurant.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. Fixed menu gourmet lunches are served in the parlor, Tuesday through Saturday. The house is open for tours on specified dates during the summer.
Steinbeck returned to the house as an adult in 1934 to care for his ailing mother. During that time, he wrote and published his successful novella “The Red Pony.” Of Steinbeck’s 27 books, “Grapes of Wrath” stands out as the best known.
A true classic of American literature, it earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and sold almost 15 million copies. In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Those seeking a more comprehensive Steinbeck experience can visit the National Steinbeck Center, located two blocks east of the house at One Main Street.
John Steinbeck House
132 Central Avenue
Salinas, CA 93901
Tel: (831) 424-2735
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