919 Felder Ave, Montgomery, AL 36106, USA
Classic American literature author Francis Scott Fitzgerald is famous not only for his novels but also for his love story. Zelda Sayre was 18 when they met in 1918 at one of the city bars. "She was the most beautiful girl I had ever met in my life. She simply had to be mine!" he recalled.
Two years later they got married, and a wild life began, full of unrestrained fun, crazy antics, and an unending party. All of America watched as the "King and Queen of Jazz" burned through life. And even the birth of their daughter did not make them settle down.
In 1931–1932, the star couple settled in Cloverdale near Montgomery, Alabama. This was a period of calm after Zelda’s first hospitalization, by which time she had developed serious mental health issues. Scott was working on Tender Is the Night, while Zelda was working on the novel Save Me the Waltz about the Jazz Age, which, as gossip has it, she started writing to spite her husband and which remained her only literary work.
The house they lived in was nothing like the luxurious mansions of Gatsby and other Fitzgerald characters. It is a modest two-story brick building built in 1910, standing among magnolias just a mile from the places where Zelda was born. After the Fitzgeralds moved out (the death of Zelda’s father triggered a new relapse, and she had to be hospitalized again), the house was divided into four apartments. Today, the writer’s museum is located downstairs, and upstairs there are two-bedroom apartments available for rent through Airbnb.
The Montgomery house is the last of the four surviving Fitzgerald homes open to visitors. All the others are privately owned. Despite the building being over a hundred years old, the rooms are equipped with all modern amenities, including a kitchen, a private bathroom (bathrooms were added in 1930), and Wi-Fi. A special “feature” is the Fitzgerald bedding by SisCovers.
Guests also have access to a separate living room, dining room, and a sunny veranda overlooking the famous magnolias that have survived since the Fitzgeralds’ time. Each room has its own exit to the outside, but the hosts recommend using the common main exit: “The staircase is steep and poorly lit at night, so for safety reasons it’s better to use it only as an emergency exit.”
Sources:
https://thefitzgeraldmuseum.networkforgood.com
