AP’s Will Weissert reports that efforts to restore Ernest Hemingway‘s Cuban hideaway probably won’t be finished until the end of 2009, held up in part by efforts to build a garage to house the author’s long-lost Chevy convertible, museum officials say. Hemingway lived at Finca Vigia, or Lookout Farm, on Havana’s southeastern outskirts from 1939 to 1960. He wrote “The Old Man and the Sea” and children’s fables at the home, which he shared with nearly 60 cats and at least 10 dogs. After his suicide in 1961, the house went to Fidel Castro and was turned into a museum the following year.
Museum director Ada Rosa Alfonso would not say Tuesday how much restoration has cost to date, or how much was needed to finish it. “It’s a process that requires dedication and time,” she said. The budget for the restoration comes from the Cuban state and “it will continue providing it,” she said. The museum is “open to accepting any kind of donation or support” but she said that Washington’s embargo has blocked willing American donors.