Where F. Scott Fitzgerald REALLY Lived
We’ve been lied to about where the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, lived in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Okay, maybe not LIED to, but whenever Fitzgerald comes up people only focus on two spots: where he was born at 481 Laurel Avenue and where he lived with his parents while he was writing his first book, This Side of Paradise, at 599 Summit Avenue.
Thanks to the incredibly well researched and written book, F. Scott Fitzgerald in Minnesota: The Author & His Friends at Home, I now know that there are actually eight (EIGHT!) other places he lived in the city. Dave Page has created a deeply researched catalog of every place Fitzgerald lived, played, learned how to dance, went to school, attended or hosted a party, had a crush, attended a play, leased an office, or just experienced life. It gives such a deeper understanding of who Fitzgerald was as a whole person and how these places made him who he was.
Where He Lived
The Fitzgeralds only lived at 481 Laurel Avenue for about 2 years before his father, Edward, lost his job and they moved to the New York. He had been a partner in a wicker furniture company, but that was (unsurprisingly) not that lucrative. He took a sales job for Johnson & Johnson. He lost that job, too.
They moved back to Saint Paul in 1908 and Scott and his little sister, Annabel, lived with their grandmother at 294 Laurel Avenue while their parents stayed with friends.
In 1909 the family moved into 514 Holly Avenue. A couple years later they moved across the street to 509 Holly Avenue. Then a few months later, just up the street to 499 Holly Avenue (which is now a parking lot).
At that point Fitzgerald went off to boarding school in New Jersey and then to Princeton and his parents moved to 593 Summit Avenue.
In 1915, Fitzgerald came home from Princeton for over a year, probably suffering from a tuberculosis flare up, and lived with his aunt at 672 Summit Avenue.
He returned to Princeton but was a terrible student. He dropped out to join the Army in WWI. He was never deployed. Instead he spent most of his time in the military writing his first book and partying with the southern belles like Zelda Sayre of Montgomery, Alabama.
The war ended but he didn’t get the girl. Her parents didn’t approve. He got a job writing advertising copy in New York. He came home to finish his book (and convince the Sayres that he could financially support their daughter) while living with his parents at 599 Summit Avenue.
He married Zelda in New York City and they went on a whirlwind tour of New York and Europe before coming back to Saint Paul. They stayed at the Saint Paul Hotel for about a minute before moving to the Commodore Hotel which was closer to family and friends.
Then they rented the home at 626 Goodrich Avenue and this is where they were living when their daughter Scottie was born and his second book, The Beautiful and the Damned, was published.
From there they went to White Bear Lake for the Summer then back to the Commodore Hotel again for a brief stay before leaving Minnesota for good.
Fitzgerald was a REAL person. It’s easy to forget that in the impressions that we have of him and Zelda. The Jazz Age, parties, bootleg gin, flappers and fast cars. Part of the true magic of Fitzgerald’s writing is that a lot of it is autobiographical. Snippets of stories are pulled from his life here on Summit or from his friends lives whose homes surrounded his own. These locations - as he said himself “in a house below the average on a street above the average” - and the people who lived in them created the feelings of inferiority that Fitzgerald struggled with his whole life. His life on the edges of wealthy society informed his point of view, creating The Great Gatsby and his other stories. He blurred the line between true fiction and true life.
