Information
Landmark: Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald MuseumCity: Montgomery
Country: USA Alabama
Continent: North America
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum, Montgomery, USA Alabama, North America
Overview
In Montgomery, the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum stands alone as the world’s only museum devoted to the legendary literary couple, F.
Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, once the glittering couple of the Jazz Age.
It’s housed in the last home they shared as husband and wife, a creaking old place that’s more than a museum-it’s a personal landmark bound up with their turbulent lives.
The museum sits inside a two-story home from the 1910s, tucked among magnolia trees in Montgomery’s Old Cloverdale neighborhood, a quiet stretch just south of downtown.
From 1931 to 1932, Scott and Zelda stayed just a short while in the house with their daughter, Scottie, who liked to race down its creaky wooden hallway.
Today, the home keeps their legacy alive and ties them to Montgomery, the warm, red-brick town where Zelda was born.
Zelda Sayre grew up in Montgomery, where she lit up the city’s lively social gatherings long before she married F.
Scott Fitzgerald, back in 1920, was already making his mark-ink on his fingers, stories rushing onto the page.
Their whirlwind courtship and quick marriage came to embody the glitter and restless energy of the Jazz Age, the same world Scott captured so vividly in his novels-champagne fizzing in crystal glasses, music spilling into the night.
By the time they settled into the Montgomery house, their marriage was already fraying-Scott drank too much, and Zelda’s mind often felt like a storm she couldn’t quiet.
Here, Zelda started her only novel, *Save Me the Waltz*, while Scott chipped away at *Tender Is the Night*, often scribbling late into the night by the dim glow of a desk lamp.
They didn’t stay long-just a handful of days-but it was the last time they lived under the same roof, sharing quiet breakfasts and the smell of coffee in the kitchen.
Over the decades, the house sagged into disrepair, its paint peeling in the summer sun, until local preservationists stepped in, determined to save a piece of the town’s history.
They turned it into a museum in the 1980s, filling its old halls with echoing footsteps and the scent of polished wood.
The museum feels intimate, its rooms carefully arranged to capture Scott and Zelda’s lives, from handwritten letters and worn paperbacks to a faded photograph tucked in a silver frame.
Manuscripts and first editions include early printings of Scott’s novels-*The Great Gatsby*, *This Side of Paradise*, and *Tender Is the Night*-along with Zelda’s own works, their pages faintly smelling of old paper.
Art by Zelda: She painted as passionately as she wrote, and the museum now shows her vivid canvases-splashes of crimson and gold that catch the eye from across the room.
Period Rooms: Worn armchairs, patterned drapes, and polished wood bring the 1930s home to life, rooting the literary history in a space that feels lived in.
The Fitzgerald Museum isn’t just a preserved home-it’s alive as a literary and cultural hub, hosting annual galas, lively festivals, and themed parties where the sparkle of the Jazz Age still flickers in champagne glasses.
Writer-in-Residence Program: Upstairs, the home hosts an artist residency, giving writers the rare chance to live and work in the very rooms the Fitzgeralds once filled with the scratch of a pen and the scent of fresh ink.
On educational tours, school groups, scholars, and curious visitors explore both the glitter and the grit of the Fitzgeralds’ lives, catching a layered glimpse of the people behind the legend.
Visitor ExperienceThe museum isn’t large, but its small scale makes the creak of the wooden floors and the quiet corners feel wonderfully personal.
As you wander from room to room, it’s less a stiff museum tour and more like slipping into Scott and Zelda’s private world, where a worn typewriter still waits on the desk.
Visitors see not just their glittering triumphs from the Roaring Twenties, but also their private struggles, revealed in pages crowded with crossed‑out lines, Zelda’s vivid brushstrokes, and a family home kept just as they knew it.
The Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum keeps alive the story of two icons who shaped American literature and culture, and it also shines a light on Montgomery’s place in that history-right down to the quiet street where they once lived.
It links the sparkle of the Jazz Age to the warm, humid streets of a Southern city where Zelda was born-and where one of the century’s most famous literary marriages came to its bittersweet end.
Today, it serves as both a literary shrine and a personal memorial, giving visitors a rare glimpse into the private lives behind two of America’s most celebrated-yet tragic-creative voices, as if you could almost hear their pens scratching across the page.
Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, once the glittering couple of the Jazz Age.
It’s housed in the last home they shared as husband and wife, a creaking old place that’s more than a museum-it’s a personal landmark bound up with their turbulent lives.
The museum sits inside a two-story home from the 1910s, tucked among magnolia trees in Montgomery’s Old Cloverdale neighborhood, a quiet stretch just south of downtown.
From 1931 to 1932, Scott and Zelda stayed just a short while in the house with their daughter, Scottie, who liked to race down its creaky wooden hallway.
Today, the home keeps their legacy alive and ties them to Montgomery, the warm, red-brick town where Zelda was born.
Zelda Sayre grew up in Montgomery, where she lit up the city’s lively social gatherings long before she married F.
Scott Fitzgerald, back in 1920, was already making his mark-ink on his fingers, stories rushing onto the page.
Their whirlwind courtship and quick marriage came to embody the glitter and restless energy of the Jazz Age, the same world Scott captured so vividly in his novels-champagne fizzing in crystal glasses, music spilling into the night.
By the time they settled into the Montgomery house, their marriage was already fraying-Scott drank too much, and Zelda’s mind often felt like a storm she couldn’t quiet.
Here, Zelda started her only novel, *Save Me the Waltz*, while Scott chipped away at *Tender Is the Night*, often scribbling late into the night by the dim glow of a desk lamp.
They didn’t stay long-just a handful of days-but it was the last time they lived under the same roof, sharing quiet breakfasts and the smell of coffee in the kitchen.
Over the decades, the house sagged into disrepair, its paint peeling in the summer sun, until local preservationists stepped in, determined to save a piece of the town’s history.
They turned it into a museum in the 1980s, filling its old halls with echoing footsteps and the scent of polished wood.
The museum feels intimate, its rooms carefully arranged to capture Scott and Zelda’s lives, from handwritten letters and worn paperbacks to a faded photograph tucked in a silver frame.
Manuscripts and first editions include early printings of Scott’s novels-*The Great Gatsby*, *This Side of Paradise*, and *Tender Is the Night*-along with Zelda’s own works, their pages faintly smelling of old paper.
Art by Zelda: She painted as passionately as she wrote, and the museum now shows her vivid canvases-splashes of crimson and gold that catch the eye from across the room.
Period Rooms: Worn armchairs, patterned drapes, and polished wood bring the 1930s home to life, rooting the literary history in a space that feels lived in.
The Fitzgerald Museum isn’t just a preserved home-it’s alive as a literary and cultural hub, hosting annual galas, lively festivals, and themed parties where the sparkle of the Jazz Age still flickers in champagne glasses.
Writer-in-Residence Program: Upstairs, the home hosts an artist residency, giving writers the rare chance to live and work in the very rooms the Fitzgeralds once filled with the scratch of a pen and the scent of fresh ink.
On educational tours, school groups, scholars, and curious visitors explore both the glitter and the grit of the Fitzgeralds’ lives, catching a layered glimpse of the people behind the legend.
Visitor ExperienceThe museum isn’t large, but its small scale makes the creak of the wooden floors and the quiet corners feel wonderfully personal.
As you wander from room to room, it’s less a stiff museum tour and more like slipping into Scott and Zelda’s private world, where a worn typewriter still waits on the desk.
Visitors see not just their glittering triumphs from the Roaring Twenties, but also their private struggles, revealed in pages crowded with crossed‑out lines, Zelda’s vivid brushstrokes, and a family home kept just as they knew it.
The Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum keeps alive the story of two icons who shaped American literature and culture, and it also shines a light on Montgomery’s place in that history-right down to the quiet street where they once lived.
It links the sparkle of the Jazz Age to the warm, humid streets of a Southern city where Zelda was born-and where one of the century’s most famous literary marriages came to its bittersweet end.
Today, it serves as both a literary shrine and a personal memorial, giving visitors a rare glimpse into the private lives behind two of America’s most celebrated-yet tragic-creative voices, as if you could almost hear their pens scratching across the page.
