You Could Buy F. Scott Fitzgerald's House

If you want to get closer to your literary idols, now is an excellent opportunity. The former home of F. Scott Fitzgerald is for sale. And as far as real estate that allows you to connect with Fitzgerald, it's a much better bargain than trying to buy a house on the Hamptons. And when you consider both that and the history, it's actually a pretty great bargain.

The house in question is in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Fitzgerald lived during his younger years before marrying Zelda Sayre — who then became Zelda Fitzgerald — and galavanting around the globe together. It's also the house where he wrote his debut novel This Side of Paradise. At the time, he had just broken up with his Zelda, who was still only a girlfriend at the time, was drinking a lot, and according to legend had the mad hope that if he could publish the novel and prove he could support himself with his writing that Zelda would take him back and agree to marry him. (The only thing more outrageous than this plan was the fact that it apparently actually worked.)

During this time, Fitzgerald holed up in his bedroom at his parents house in Summit Terrace in St. Paul, in order to write. And as far as abodes for a starving artist, a three-story Victorian brownstone designed by Clarence H. Johnston isn't half bad.

Now that same house is on the market. The house is three-stories, 3,500 square feet, and has four bathrooms and four bedrooms. It was built in 1889. Years later, Fitzgerald's parents bought it and the aspiring author lived with them for several stretches starting in 1914, just after he graduated Princeton, until This Side of Paradise was published in 1920. And if you have $665,000 to spare, it could be yours!

F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in many places over the years, and this is not the first of his homes to come up for sale — in fact, his house in Long Island sold just last year — for several million dollars. His Baltimore house in Bolton Hill sold in 2013 for a much more reasonable price.

But as someone who's used to New York City real estate prices, the price of the St. Paul house also seems pretty great. And sure to make at least one literary aficionado very happy.