Ernest Hemingway's mansion on the Florida Keys has been battered by Hurricane Ian's 155mph winds, but all the six-toes cats that roam the property have been reported safe.

The famous home, where the great American scribe wrote 70 per cent of his published works, has been struck by debris and suffered superficial wind damage, according to The Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum App.

But the structure is sound and the cats are doing fine after being put into sheltered cages as the Category Four hurricane lashed the property on Tuesday into Wednesday.

'We've seen some debris blown across the grounds and wind damage. A lot has been blown across the garden,' spokesperson Alexa Morgan told DailyMail.com.

Staff have been working to clean up the leaves and tree debris and have the museum open for business once again tomorrow. 

'All out cats are safe - we don't put them in cages, they walk around and naturally know to get to safety during storms,' Alexa said.

'The cats and staff are safe. We are cleaning the debris today and will resume open for tomorrow.'

All 59 cats that roam the building, which dates from the 1930s, have been accounted for.

Key West was hit hard early on Tuesday night, with streets flooded and downed power lines posing a threat if they connected with standing water. 

But the home is well equipped to withstand the many storms it has faced over the decades. It is 16 feet above sea level, has 18-inch-thick limestone walls, and three generators. 

Staff at the Hemingway Home spent days preparing for the arrival of the tempest, battening down the hatches and putting the cats in protective cages. 

Some staff members even stayed on site during the storm to take care of the six-toed creatures. 

The cats colony has been a famous feature of Ernest Hemingway's house ever since the day when a sailor gave him a six-toed cat, which he named Snow White. 

Some of the cats who live there today are descendants of that original ancestor and all share the unusual number of toes for a cat.

Whereas regular cats have five toes on the front paws and four on the rear - so 18 in total - Hemingway's cats are polydactyl cats, which have six or sometimes seven toes on the front paws.

Hurricane Ian has now largely passed over the panhandle state, wreaking untold damage and killing 'hundreds' in the wake of flash flooding and wind storm damage.  

Ernest Hemingway's granddaughter said before the storm hit that she was praying the beloved mansion would be spared by the hurricane.

Mariel Hemingway, 60, said her grandfather was passionate about his homes and the community around them.

The house was originally given to Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline, as a wedding gift from her uncle.

'If any of his houses were destroyed the pain and sorrow would be palpable,' she told DailyMail.com.

'It would be upsetting if any of his houses were affected.'

The celebrated author owned three homes - in Key West; Ketchum, Idaho, and the Cuban capital Havana - and relished turning them into lavish residences where he would work, rest and entertain.

His Florida Keys home was used as a location in the 1989 James Bond film, License to Kill. 

'He would buy his houses from France to Ohio because he loved them and loved the areas and the people,' she said.

After his divorce from Pauline in 1940, Hemingway moved to Cuba and Pauline remained in the home until her death in 1951.

The house was sold for $80,000, initially as a private residence. In 1964 it was turned into a museum. 

Mariel, whose father Jack was the only child of Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson, said he would have been relieved his Cuba house was spared by Hurricane Ian.

Electricity was out across the entire island of Cuba by Tuesday night as it was pummeled by the storm, plunging 11 million people into darkness. 

'He loved Cuba and the devastation it's seen would have affected him greatly. The Cuba house was his favorite,' said Mariel.

She said that, when the house in the Keys was in the path of Hurricane Irma in September 2017, it took hours for the news to filter through.

'When the Florida one was hit by a hurricane previously, the only news that came out of it was that his six-toed cat survived,' she said.