Jack Kerouac House

Despite not leaving much else of a mark on the city where he spent his final years, the Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, Florida still marks the author’s career and passing and is a pilgrimage site for many of his fans. 

The house itself is a simple wooden affair that one could pass, never knowing it was once home to one of America’s most beloved poets and writers. Kerouac lived in the home with his wife and ailing mother while producing one of his most iconic works, The Dharma Bums. After his death the house remained with his family, but was never capitalized on as a literary landmark until recently.

A group known as the Friends of Jack Kerouac have owned and run the house as a writers’ residency called the Kerouac Project since 2000, where writers live expense-free for three months while developing new work. In 2013, the house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and 2014 saw a sign placed outside the house as part of the Florida Historical Marker Program to designate the house’s importance as a Florida Heritage Site.