Chicago-area Ernest Hemingway museum to close Sunday

OAK PARK, Ill. – Organizers of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park say the non-profit historical museum in the Chicago suburb will close Sunday.

Foundation Chairman John W. Berry tells the Chicago Tribune that the group needed to “pursue a new vision” to keep the writer’s legacy alive. Some of the museum’s exhibits will become part of the Hemingway Archives housed at the Oak Park Public Library.

The foundation’s new goal is to build a multi-purpose facility called the Hemingway Center for Writing and Research near Hemingway’s birth home in Oak Park. It would include classrooms, exhibit spaces, a gift shop and administrative offices. Foundation officials say that will require fundraising efforts.

The foundation will continue to operate Hemingway’s birthplace home, which Hemingway’s grandfather Ernest Hall built in 1890.