Famous Guy Slept Here

By Logan Orlando

Abe Lincoln just got a spiffy new museum near his boyhood home in Springfield, Ill. But the hometown legacy of less-than-Lincolnesque figures is often harder to maintain. An update on some domiciles of departed American icons that have been in and out of danger recently.

Jimi Hendrix

The guitar legend's Seattle home escaped the wrecking ball in 2001 by a move to a city-owned lot. But now it is being evicted and faces demolition after June 3 unless his fans can save it.

Ernest Hemingway

Papa's fans want to turn the Ketchum, Idaho, house where he lived and died (he shot himself there in 1961) into a public museum. But neighbors are fighting it.

Johnny Carson

Investors paid $150,000 in 2003 for his boyhood home in Norfolk, Neb., but couldn't unload it (even after dropping the price on eBay to $93,500). After Carson's death, it was bought by a firm that develops historic properties.

Andy Warhol

The Pittsburgh, Pa., home where the artist grew up has been vacant and falling apart since 1999. Last month a planning and development group began talks with the owner to buy and restore it, perhaps for use by art students at nearby Carnegie-Mellon University.