Bonnet House Blog

Another Great Season of Concerts Under the Stars Gets Underway at Bonnet House

One of Fort Lauderdale’s most popular music series marks its return on Thursday, January 23 at 7pm, when the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens kicks off its 18^th season of the Young Artist Music series with a performance by the University of Miami’s Frost Opera Theater, featuring Graduate Students pursuing Masters and Doctorate degrees in the University’s Department of Vocal Performance. Also featured are two undergraduate students who recently attended the National Opera Association conference in New York City, where they performed a duet from Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love.

The sensational season continues on February 13 with Florida Atlantic University’s Latin Vocal Ensemble, followed on March 13 by the Lynn University String Quartet, and culminates with the April 10 presentation by Florida Grand Opera’s rising stars.

Beginning as a community outreach program, the Young Artist Music series has successfully become one of Bonnet House’s most treasured programs. Individual tickets for this very special 18^th anniversary season range from $35 – $45 per performance and series tickets from $120 – $160, so everyone can enjoy musical evenings under the stars like no other. And this year, the best gets even better, as – in addition to a great musical evening – wine, dessert and coffee will be included in the price of admission through the auspices of Whole Foods Market. It’s quite possibly the “best deal in town.”

The beautiful art for the Young Artist Music Series poster is produced by the honors class at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, with this season’s winning design provided by Paul Tran.

Bonnet House is located at 900 North Birch Road, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304. For more information or to purchase tickets, call (954) 703-2614 or visit us at www.bonnethouse.org/calendar/

Wouldn’t it be great to spend your days roaming one of the nation’s most beautiful historic houses and gardens? And wouldn’t it be immensely rewarding to help others share in its transcendent beauty and remarkable history? This wonderful opportunity is there for you when you become a volunteer at historic Bonnet House in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, helping visitors to truly experience the uniqueness of this architectural jewel and its surrounding lush tropical gardens. Bonnet House volunteers have many opportunities to serve, and it is through the efforts of our dedicated volunteers that we are able to maintain the integrity of this unique historical estate and to ensure a pleasant and enjoyable experience for each guest who visits.

There are a variety of ways – to suit everyone’s skills and talents – in which you can serve as a Bonnet House volunteer. You can become a Lead Guide, sharing the Bonnet House story as you guide visitors through a tour of the main residence, or you can become an Education Volunteer, promoting Bonnet House’s educational missions. There are wonderful opportunities for Back-Up Guides, assisting the Lead Guides, and for Nature Trail Interpreters, who share historical, environmental and botanical facts with the visitors.  Other volunteer opportunities available include Bridge Greeters, who welcome visitors and providing directional information; Courtyard Coordinators check admissions and monitor the courtyard to ensure proper flow; Museum Shop Assistants help maintain control and oversee items in the Gift Shop; Collections Volunteers work with the Curator in the care and maintenance of archives; Research and Library Volunteers create the Bartlett’s book collection; and Data Input Volunteers compile and input data in various formats for events and files.

A visit to South Florida is truly not complete without time spent at beautiful, historic Bonnet House Museum & Gardens. Help us to tell visitors a fascinating story that spans and parallels a wide swath of American history, and makes their visit to the estate a uniquely educational and entertaining experience.

Volunteer at the Historic Bonnet House in Fort Lauderdale

Bonnet House is located at 900 North Birch Road, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304. For more information about becoming a volunteer, please call (954) 563-5393 or visit www.bonnethouse.org/opportunities – we look forward to sharing this wonderful experience with you.

A Full Day at Bonnet House is a Day Full of Fun-Filled Activities in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

When you visit Bonnet House in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, you not only get to enjoy one of the most historic – as well as most beautiful – house and gardens in our nation. You’re also welcome to participate in a plethora of activities to make your day truly memorable.

The bright and airy Caribbean style house, built in the early part of the 1920s and located in a 35-acre slice of breathtaking waterfront property, is an architectural gem reflecting original owner Frederic Clay Bartlett’s vivid artistry throughout, with painted faux marble floors and murals on walls and wood ceilings in major rooms. And the gardens and winding nature trails surrounding the house – and the native wildlife inhabiting the grounds – are every bit as impressive. But that is only the beginning.

You can register for a VIP experience at Bonnet House Museum & Gardens by taking a sneak peek inside normally-closed areas – showcasing rooms not seen on regular tours – of Evelyn and Frederic Bartlett’s private living quarters, in tours led by seasoned Bonnet House docents.

You can also register for a breathtaking Orchid Greenhouse Tour. Our greenhouses and display house hold approximately 1,200 beautiful plants in various stages of development, and our Bonnet House Orchid Curator will show you around and discuss how our orchids are bred and cultivated (including our impressive seedling program). This tour is an absolute treat for orchid enthusiasts and novices alike, and exquisite varieties of orchid seedlings are available for purchase.

But wait, there’s more! If you love art, you can participate in Outdoor Watercolor and Acrylic Workshops, where you will draw and paint from floral, landscape and architectural motifs in a beautiful tropical setting. If bird watching suits your fancy, you can register for Birding Classes and enjoy a better look at our fine-feathered friends. And why not wind up a sensational day with an enchanting musical evening, enjoying our popular Concerts Under The Stars, with live performances by the finest young talent in South Florida on the beautiful Bonnet House Veranda – with complimentary wine, dessert and coffee.

A visit to South Florida is truly not complete without time spent at beautiful, historic Bonnet House Museum & Gardens. Besides all the exciting activities to be enjoyed, the story told here spans and parallels a wide swath of American history and makes a visit both to these pages and to the estate not only most entertaining, but also uniquely educational. Bonnet House is located at 900 North Birch Road, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304. For more information and registration details for all activities, please call (954) 563-5393 or visit BonnetHouse.org.

For decades, Frederic and Evelyn Bartlett were pursued by developers wanting to acquire the Bonnet House estate for residential or commercial development.  Frederic and his second wife Helen Birch had even fled to Europe in 1924 to escape a near-constant barrage of offers.  Such pursuit continued, largely unabated, throughout the 1930s and 40s. In the years immediately preceding Frederic Bartlett’s death in 1953, the City of Fort Lauderdale had been seeking a solution to what was felt to be too-heavy traffic along State Road A1A which by then separated the eastern perimeter of the Bonnet House estate from its beach.

The city’s hope had been to persuade the Bartletts to allow an alternate north-south route to be cut through the middle of their property.  This was to be accomplished by extending the existing Birch Road through the center of the estate. The Bartletts steadfastly resisted, and following Frederic’s death, the city quietly dropped the subject. Although Frederic and Evelyn Bartlett had long managed to fend off efforts to develop the Bonnet House property, Evelyn by the 1970s – widowed and already in her eighties – became increasingly concerned about what would happen to the estate and to Frederic’s creative legacy after her death.  Even though she was still residing comfortably at Bonnet House, the property had become badly frayed around the edges – woodwork damaged and paint peeling, wiring in dangerous need of updating, the grounds heavily overgrown – problems that, though well within Evelyn’s financial ability to correct, were seemingly too extensive for an 80-year-old widow to deal with.  Consequently, Evelyn became increasingly determined to ensure that the magical estate created by her artistic husband be somehow preserved and returned to its former glory.  “There’s nothing left along the shore, you know, nothing except this place, from Miami to Palm Beach,” she would later say.  “I don’t want it to change.” Evelyn began considering possibilities for preservation, and in this effort enlisted the assistance of her financial advisor, Raymond E. George, Senior Vice President at the Northern Trust Bank in Chicago.

Early on, they agreed to change the property’s mailing address to that of the bank in Chicago so that inquiries from developers would be directed to the bank by public records, and Evelyn could thus be spared dealing with continuing advances and proposals. Throughout a more than ten-year preservation effort, Evelyn remained steadfast that, not only must the property be protected from commercial developers, but also that any organization granted ownership and responsibility for preserving it must be forever prevented from making commercial additions incompatible with running the estate as a museum, cultural center or nature preserve. As early as 1972, Ray George asked the Nature Conservancy’s Christopher Dann, Vice President and Director of Development, if there existed precedents of land being conveyed by gift to a municipal government – as one possible and public way to ensure preservation.  Dann said there were, and suggested ways that such a public conveyance of Bonnet House could be made, not only to the city of Fort Lauderdale, but perhaps to the State of Florida because of the property’s proximity to Birch State Park. Other possible candidates for taking Bonnet House in the early 1970s included the American Horticultural Society and the Audubon Society.

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Dillard High School art students will be exhibiting 10 works of art during Bonnet House’s 7^th Annual Orchid, Garden & Gourmet Food Festival.  The exhibition is titled NatureScapes @ Bonnet House–thirty-five acres with five ecosystems, numerous plants, a variety of orchids, and many beautiful objects provided inspiration for this exhibition.  The works will create a visual scrapbook of the diversity of Bonnet House Museum & Gardens.  The Exhibit will be on display in the newly renovated Island Theater December 7, 2013 – January 5, 2014 with a reception on Sunday, December 8 at 2pm.

In addition to the unique collection of art, exotic orchids and plants sold by over 40 local vendors, the two-day event will feature gourmet food trucks, libations, orchid care lectures, cooking and gardening demonstrations, a silent auction display, live music and a farmer’s market.

The event will take place Saturday and Sunday, December 7^th and 8^th from 9:00am to 4:00pm.  The entry fee is $10 for members and $12 for non-members for the fair and grounds and an additional fee of $8 for the self-guided tour through the house. Tickets are available online at www.bonnethouse.org or by calling (954) 703-2614.

Event Features:

Orchid and Exotic Plants – Featuring over 40 vendors including tropicals, fruit trees, bamboo, butterfly garden plants and much more.
Orchid Displays & Silent Auction – Various orchid displays created by the participating vendors will be available for auction.
Gourmet Food Trucks – Food trucks throughout the property offering edible bites.
Dillard High School Art Exhibit- NatureScapes @ Bonnet House. Beautiful works of art inspired by the Bonnet House Estate will be on display in the newly renovated Island Theater.  Reception scheduled for Sunday, December 8 at 2pm.  Exhibition will run Saturday, December 7, 2013– Sunday, January 5, 2014.
Orchid Supplies – Vendors to provide all you need to plant and grow orchids.
Wine, Beer, Mimosa’s & Bloody Mary’s– Enjoy an invigorating mixture as you wander through the garden.
Garden Art – Attractive and unusual orchid and/or garden related items from several vendors.
Lectures – Educational lectures by Home Depot on caring for your garden and how-to demonstrations by Whole Foods Market on preparing healthy meals for the entire family.
Marando Farms Green Market – Herbs, organic fruit and vegetables and helpful tips on gardening will be available.
Self-guided Tours of the House and Grounds – Stroll through the grounds and house at your leisure and experience the charm and beauty of the Bonnet House estate.
Rest Areas – Where you can sit and relax in the shade.
The Bonnet House Museum Shop – Near the main house, offers a unique choice of interesting books, jewelry and array of gift items.
Lots of Free parking – The entrance to the parking lot is on N. Birch Road off of Sunrise Blvd. between A1A and the Intracoastal Waterway.