Photo taken by photographer & 1970’s Miami Springs mayor R. B. Fordyce of Ernest Hemingway in one of the rooms on the Curtiss Mansion grounds (then Art Bruns’ Miami Springs Villas) April 19, 1956. Hemingway dined at the Villas between flights on his trip from his home in Cuba to Cabo Blanco, Peru. He was on his way to Cabo to work on the Spencer Tracy film The Old Man And The Sea based on his short novel of the same name. The photo is signed to “Judge Bishop”. Warren Bishop was the Miami Springs town Judge at the time & a director of the new Executive Club at the Villas. Hemingway & his wife Mary liked the steaks at the Villas so much that they had 90 pounds of it shipped to Peru for his 32 day trip there. The beef sparked a running feud between the Peruvian government Customs Department who refused to let it into the country and Hemingway. He was able to fish on the trip and after catching the 750 pound Black Marlin shown in the 2nd photo he sent a cable to Villas manager Art Bruns offering him enough Marlin for the menu at the Villas for the rest of the year.
