Title: Hemingway swimming pools

Authors: Idalberto M. Batista Blas

Ariel A. Jolly Manzano

“It's interesting to look at history, but it's even better to be immersed in it.”

June, 2019
Introduction
This work comes up as a part of a technique investigation about the equipment installed at
the swimming pool of the Finca Vigía museum, in San Francisco de Paula, in order to
undertake a reform of this place.
This swimming pool system has technique
characteristics that were too advanced for that
time, and its high cost and construction was
directly supervised by Hemingway. As a part of our
study we discovered how important were the pools
on the well-known writer’s world, we also knew
this investment wasn’t just a simple property
investment for luxury or to increase the value of
the property, but this important leisure place was
really important on the day- to- day of the writer
and was part of his daily routine.

Index
 
Index ........................................................................................................................... 1 
The Swimming Pools in Hemingway ................................................................................ 2 
The pool at Whitehead Street, #907 of Key West, Florida. ................................................ 4 
-  Characteristics and construction: ........................................................................... 4 
-  The story of the “last penny”: .............................................................................. 5 
The Swimming pool in Finca Vigía, San Francisco de Paula: .............................................. 6 
-  Planning: ............................................................................................................. 6 
-  Technical features of the offer: ............................................................................. 7 
-  The Execution: ..................................................................................................... 8 
-  The Post Sale: ..................................................................................................... 9 
-  Recent history and current situation: .................................................................... 9 
Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 10 

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The Swimming Pools in Hemingway

Many biographers and studious have stablished that sport was present prominently on
Hemingway’s routine activities and life. To Hemingway his passion for sports wasn’t only
induced by his father’s education but also by the influence of the American culture at the
beginnings of 1900’s. By that time young men like Hemingway were very passionate for sports
and physical culture, that was a part of the definition of figure of a man, to be outstanding
on competitive sports. The exposition to a sports and games since early age as a part of the
1900’s beginnings, formed not only the Hemingway men but also the writer.

Hemingway made his first school at the Oak Park public education system, is well-known that
during his studies at High School he swimming, played football, basketball, and polo. When
he came back from Milan in 1919 he got back to reintegrate into society swimming at the
YMCA swimming pool. The fishing, canoeing and swimming not only gave him the activity that
would allow him the recovery of his injuries but also he could connect with the other boys
that took him out from his loneliness because of the post war shock.

In 1928 Hemingway moved to Key West, Florida with his

wife Pauline Pfeiffer and being there planned the
construction of a swimming pool. This construction was
supervised by Pauline since 1937 to 1938 while he was
working as a reporter of the Spanish Civil War. That was the
first swimming pool at Key West with the total cost was
more than 8’000 usd initially planned. Later we’ll talk deeply
about this swimming pool.

Being Married with Martha in 1940 he converted his residence

in Cuba Finca Vigía into his winter home. Finca Vigía had by
that time, a swimming pool and was always a very important
place on the writer’s day-to-day. “He woke up at six in the
morning and wrote till around 12 or 1:00 at noon, went to the
swimming pool to take a bath and to read”, said René
Villarreal, the ex-butler of Finca Vigía. He received celebrities
and friends at the Finca Vigía Swimming pool and some of
them were invited to wet their feet on the water where the
Goddess Ava Gardner had taken a bath before. The writer and editor of “The Paris Review”
magazine, George Plimpton, also took a bath naked in the “Greenish waters” of the Finca
Vigía swimming pool, but he was grateful that never were pics from that moment.
In
A

Norberto Fuentes tell us on his book “Hemingway in Cuba” that the writer swam half a mile a
day and his wife, a mile. In a letter wrote by Papa to his friend Charles Scribner on Finca
Vigía, on April 12, 1951, he told him “Will swim fifty laps in the pool so that I’ll sleep good
and hit the book tomorrow”. 50 laps on the swimming pool of 50 feet of long at Finca Vigía
were 0.47 mille (756 m), half a mile.

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The Finca Vigía swimming pool also played an important role on its recovering from the Africa
accidents in 1954 as is shown at the letter written to his friend Peter Viertel on July 19th,
1954, where he said: "Pool wonderful and cool and have been swimming and exercising
regularly."

In 1959, during around six months that he was living at La

Consula, Málaga, Spain, he enjoyed the swimming pool of
that villa with the Davis family. Also in 1961, while he was
admitted at the Clinical Mayo, his doctor Howard Rome
ordered his intern Bob Rynearson that socialize with the
writer. Bob invited the writer to his parents’ house at the
Sunny Slopes town, where the house, with a Cape Code
style, had the first in-ground swimming pool of Rochester.
During this spring Hemingway enjoyed splashing around in
the swimming pool with the children and telling them
stories of war.

At the decline of his life, in 1961 Hemingway offered an interview to Edward Stafford that
appeared at the “Writer’s Digest “, in 1964. Answering to a question about how much he used
to work daily, he said: “I work from about seven until about noon. Then I go fishing or
swimming, or whatever I want”.

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The pool at Whitehead Street, #907 of Key West, Florida.

This swimming pool is considered between the

most relevant of the Florida state. It was the first
one on Key West and is as prominent as the ones
that exists on the residences of Henry Ford and
Thomas Edison in Fort Myers. It was, by that
time, a big architectural challenge.

- Characteristics and construction:

This pool has 64 feet long by 24 wide (19.50 m X 7.31 m), the depth goes from 5 at the north
part to 10 feet to the south (1.5 m to 3 m) and its capacity is 80’784 gallons (305.8 m3) of
water. Was built with the typical system of that time, of “filled and emptied”, that consist in
filling the pool and when the water became useless because of dust and proliferation of algae,
were emptying, cleaned and filled again. This system became into an additional problem
because by that years does not exist an aqueduct on Key West, and this took them to the
drilling and encasing of a deep well to pump and fill the pool with salt water.

The construction of the pool involved in the excavation of more than

350 m3 of solid rock with the tools and methods of that time. The
house is located to 16 feet (4.87 m) upon the sea level, is the second
promotion on Key West, there wasn’t found water during the
excavation, something that would have made more complex the work.
Although it was an initial inconvenient, the rock is a good foundation
to the concrete structure of the pool, getting reduced the costs of
concrete and steel.

It wasn’t until 1944 that Key West had fresh water from the aqueduct
and the pool could be filled with drinking water, but the system of “filled
and emptied” got a high maintenance cost. The salt water pump took
from 2 till 3 days to fill the pool with salt water, this water in the summer
remained fresh the same time, so the pool had to be emptied, to hold
another day or maybe two to be cleaned and start the cycle again. A
pump maker of the time (Duro company, catalog 1926) estimated the
well pump operation costs in 10 cts by every 1000 gallons of water
pumped, that’s why every cycle of filled cost to Hemingway around 8,07
usd just in pumped. This pumped cost was considered inferior to the
aqueduct water cost’s average and the costs of drinking water were
similar by cycle with the difference that the drinking water at the pool
takes more time to become useless and the cycles made longer.

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The pool ‘s structure is concrete and the interior surface is painted. The pool counted with a
powerful underwater illumination that, as Pauline said on a letter to Robert Lowell “it could
be seen from Mars”.

- The story of the “last penny”:

People said the pool’s construction on Key West was an effort

of Pauline to save her marriage, but the staff of the museum
said that was Hemingway who planned the construction of
the pool and let Pauline in charge of the supervision of the
construction since 1937 to 1938 while he was working as a
correspondent of Spain Civil War. The initial estimate of the
works was 8’000 usd, the same amount that the all house cost
when was bought it.

At his return in 1938 to Key West Hemingway didn’t understand how the final cost of the
pool’s construction had reached the amount of 20’000 usd and showing his temperament he
claimed: “Pauline, you’ve spent all my last penny, so you might as well have that” so, taking
a penny out of his pocket and throwing it to the floor. Pauline, in returns, cemented the penny
on the floor. Today people can see a 1934 Lincoln coin at the end of the north part of the
pool embedded in the cement as a memory of that moment. Whether is certain or not, the
“last penny “constitute one the attractions and stories of the museum of Key West.

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The Swimming pool in Finca Vigía, San Francisco de Paula:

On January 22, 1941, Ernest Hemingway legally

bought by 18’500 pesos more than 43 thousand m2 of
Finca Vigía’s residence. Before that moment the pool
was part of the property, although it had the “filled and
emptied” system of those years taking water from a
drilled well near the pool. Its dimensions are 50 feet
long (15.24 m) x 36 of wide (10.97 m), with 5 feet
deep (1.5 m) at the low part and 8 feet (2.42 m) at the
deep part.

- Planning:

The system of “filled and emptied” gave it not too much

use of the pool like happened on the Key West residence,
the high costs of operation, the little lasting of the water
due to the highs temperatures and because of the
abundant vegetation that round it, were the causes that
made Hemingway to took the decision of a rebuilding.
According to the instructions that let to Pichirilo for the
Fall-Winter in 1948, the idea of the renovation of the pool
its materialized from the experience of his neighbor Frank
Steinhart who had renovated the pool at his country
residence Happy Hollow. On the instructions can be read:

**To Pichilo: Autumn and Winter of 1948:

-Pool: Let the pool full of water all the time, and don’t empty it till we
come back. (Is possible that we’ll fix it with a motor cleaning water as s.
Steinhart. But all this has to wait till we returned.)
-Pool: Let the pool full of water all the time, and don’t empty it till we
come back. (Is possible that we will make a cleaning with water with a
special method for that, as was made one time at Mr. Steinhart’s property.

** PICHILO – Work to do December - January, 1949-1950.

- POOL: Let the pool full of water all the time.

On June 9th, 1950 Mr R. Schmidt from “CIA. PURIFICADORES DE AGUA DE CUBA, S. A.”
presented Hemingway a quotation covering the furnishing and installation of the equipment’s
composing a “Swimming Pool Water Purification and Recirculation System” by 4’450.00 usd.
This company was the same that made the renovation to Sr. Steinhart as show of the annexes
of the offer.

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This initial offer does not contemplate doing the civil works related to the equipment room of
the pool, that is why on June 14th was presented an offer with this cost 1’320.00 usd. And
didn’t contemplate neither the civil works related to the hydraulic installation nor the electricity
supply to the pump’s motor.
The payment conditions were: 50% to the order’s sign, 25% for the arriving of the main
equipment to the construction place and the other 25% when finish the work.

- Technical features of the offer:

According to the presenting offer on June 9th, 1950 it had been proposing a purification and
water recycling system calculated to this pools that had 75’000 gallons (284 m3). Unlike his
neighbor’s pool that has 1 filter of 5 feet (1.5 m) of diameter and two pumps, its proposed 3
filters of 48 inches (1.22 m) of diameter with a pump.

The steel filters were with sands bed and gravel and they could
have filtered the 75,000 gallons of water of the pool in less than
12 hours, when the stipulated at that time was from 12 to 16
hours to private pools. Offer also included all the pipework, valves
and connections to operate the system and dispose the different
variants of water directions (filtration, backwash, rinse and
waste).

The pump had the capacity to filter the water through the 3 filters
and backwash every filter separately, counted with a hair catcher
placed on the suction line ahead of the pump. It was of 220V, 60
hz and 3 phases, the capacity of it was 3 HP and a flow of 100
gals/min (22.71 m³/h). This configuration confirm that it can
really move all the water to the pool by the filters in 12.5 hours.

In addition to this, the offer included an “Automatic Crystal Alum Fee” able
to fee Alum to the system that allowed to improve the filtered efficiency,
also included Chlorinator to dose water with Chlorine powder and, finally
incorporated a Pool Vacuum Cleaner TUEC model DELUXE with its
connection hose to be plugged in the 2 lines of cleaning installed at both
sides of the pool.

The whole offer considered a last generation system, with techniques that,
even today are considered an advance. To Hemingway should have been
the solutions to all his problems with the pool. His enthusiasm with the
proposal showed it on June 12th, 1950, only 3 days after the offer was
presented when Hemingway gave 2’225.00 USD to Sr. R. Schmidt of the
“CIA. PURIFICADORES DE AGUA DE CUBA, S. A.” equivalent to the 50% of total value and on
confirmation to the equipment order… the work had begun.

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 - The Execution:

The execution of the pool’s renovation was made by the same company of Sr. R. Schmidt.
The time of the operation was “from 6 to 8 weeks, approximately from the date of signing
the order”. If we take as a date of signing the order (and delivered the first payment) June
12th, 1950 meant that for August 7th, Hemingway already should have been enjoying his
pool… but that’s was not what happened… We’ll see.

“CIA. PURIFICADORES DE AGUA DE CUBA, S. A.” was apparently an agency in Cuba of the
Spain company “PURIFICADORES DE AGUA, S. A.”, an enterprise based in Barcelona with
experience on water treatment and pools since 1927. This enterprise in Spain had equipment
factories and worked with patents of the multinational B&W. In Cuba the “CIA.
PURIFICADORES DE AGUA DE CUBA, S. A.” had implemented construction and renovations
of pool system in several locations all over Cuba, working with famous architects, mainly with
Arg. Rafael de Cárdenas, who should had been the uncle of the company secretary, G. de
Cárdenas. This was the architect who he undertakes with the construction of the second pool
at National Hotel, at the same year of 1950.

The equipment should have arrived to Finca Vigía on August 9th, 1950, it is revealed in the
payment receipt with same date by 1112.50 USD, that represented the 25% of the value
agreed and this must be done when the main equipment arrived. In October 7th, Papa give
another payment of 1112.50 USD and with this it finished the initial offer payment. According
to the agreement, that was the last one 25% to be paid at the end of the construction work
but, the renovation hadn’t finished at all.

In October 13th, Hemingway paid 600.00 USD to Sr. R.

Schmidt and this one confirmed that he will finished in
October 25th “but some in the irruptions due to
hurricanes”. Made it´s delays this appeared to be a
ridiculous excuse, but that autumn of 1950 was one of
the most active hurricane season in Cuba. First of all,
the tropical storm BAKER that passed since 25/08 to
27/08, second the hurricane EASY, that passed through
Cuba since 02/09 to 03/09 and finally the hurricane
KING that passed since 16/10 to 17/10. It isn´t our
intention to justified the builder for the delay on the
construction work but we can imagine how hard should
be that kind of situation with a hurricane in a middle of
a renovation work, so we can´t imagine how would be
with three hurricanes in the same season. Also, Hemingway were involved with these
phenomena as well as he wrote on his notebook.

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In October 31st, Sr. R. Schmidt already received another payment according to a receipt made
by hand, with the number of 210.00 USD from Hemingway, this time just admitting that “the
work hasn’t finished”.

Adding the 2 offers (equipment and civil works) the total cost to pay was of 5’770.00 USD,
the sum of the receipts is 5’260.00 USD, there are still just 510.00 USD to had been paid at
the end, only when the work finished, probably in November 1950.

In November 1951, Hemingway ordered to the S. SIERRA Y

RODRIGUEZ Company, a DURO pump of deep well, with a
capacity of 1’700 gph powered by a motor of 3HP and able to
raise from a 100 depth feet high. This pump had the task to fill
the pool and supply the water tanks of the house from the well
situated on the pool side. Papa paid another 1’171.00 USD for this
equipment.

- The Post Sale:

Although the implementation of the pool’s renovation taken more than what they wished, the
subsequently relations between Hemingway and the Company of Sr. R Schmidt were good. A
document was delivered to Hemingway with the instructions of how to operate the complex
system of the pool, including the chemical to add it for his well-functioning. Besides, this
enterprise kept Hemingway well informed of all the new products that were on sale at the
market and they sent him a copy of the technical information and samples, as is shown on
the communication in May 12th, 1958, about an algicide that was promoting the company
ROHM & HAAS Co. from Philadelphia USA.

In 1960, after his return from Spain, he received an offer of “CIA. PURIFICADORES DE AGUA
DE CUBA, S. A.” for the installations of some residential drinking water purifier to reduce the
consume of big bottles of water. But in July 25th 1960, Hemingway and Mary went out of
Cuba for the last time and also had already begun the Nationalizations process of the new
Cuban revolution. Probably that was the last offer of service that Hemingway received in Cuba,
and was the last offer this Company made in Cuba.

- Recent history and current situation:

After Hemingway’s departure the pool has been completely

empty, the pool surface has received several painting coats, even
one of them was with water paint. Some cracks have appeared
but they have been repaired frequently and the paint is retouched
with certain frequency. The state of the equipment room is a little
neglected but we trust that situation we’ll change in a near future.

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Conclusions

The history’s study gives us the possibility to visualize what really happened and show us how
we have to act to get a better future. With this work we’ve learned more about this great
personality that was Ernest Hemingway, about the way he was and his vision of life. The
swimming pools in his life, weren’t luxury, but a part of his daily physical exercise. He worked
with his mind and pools helped him to keep his body healthy and to relax his head. The pool
was also the place to enjoy with friends and families, to talk, to celebrate parties, to joke and
to rest.
We firmly believe the pool and its equipment room deserved a better preservation to
incorporate together with the other rooms that are shown at the museum, not only as part of
Hemingway’s story, but as a part of the Cuban pools and the best of our country.

We must show to the public this place of Finca Vigía, and not only talk about of the nude
baths, but also the story of its constructions and its technical details so advanced by that time.
The best thing would be to renovate all and make that works with its recycling water system.
Would be a good attraction as the Key West’s pool is. The big difference remains that still are
a lot of “genetic material” on the filters of all those years, who wet the feet in that pool, not
only will be enjoying the waters where the Goddess Ava Gardner took a bath but also the God
Ernest Hemingway.

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