Friday March 14th, 2025 Fort Lauderdale, USA
- Neil Wylie
- Dec 5, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 19
Earlier in the voyage we did not have a good stop in Fort Lauderdale and so today I’m hoping to find something better to than taking the shuttle bus to just visit a horrible shopping mall. So with a bit of web searching I found an interesting historical estate to visit and when I looked at the location it turned out to be just a short walk from the shopping mall, so we could take advantage of the ship’s shuttle bus but not visit the mall.
When ships stop in the US it is required that all on board, including crew, go through a face to face immigration check and no passengers are allowed back on board until everyone has been checked. This process leads to large queues at the immigration check points, so we decided to wait until quite late in the morning before disembarking; this worked out well and we were through immigration very quickly. However when we reached the stop to board the shuttle bus there was a large crowd standing out in the sun and no sign of any buses. With taxis readily available we decided to use this option and get dropped off right at the destination.
In 1895 a rich Chicago lawyer called Hugh Taylor Birch was exploring the Florida coast and bought 35 acres of beach front property, he later gave the property to his daughter Helen as a wedding gift. With her husband, artist Frederic Clay Bartlett, they built the Bonnet House as a winter beach house – I guess this is what the rich elite would do when they needed a cozy 35 acre bolt hole. Today the Bonnet House and Museum is an amazing time capsule from the 1920s that has somehow survived all the tourist based development that has grown up around it.
As we walked up the gravel driveway to the ticket office it was a nice warm day with a light cooling breeze, and we became enveloped in the lush, tropical landscape – it was like stepping back in time to enter another world. After watching a brief introductory video we made our way to the main house. The architecture was not dramatic with mostly single story painted concrete block buildings and wooden roofs in the Caribbean plantation style. With a beautiful central garden area enclosed by cloister-like corridors on 4 sides, the main structure contained an art studio, music room, drawing room and dining room.
Unlike other stately houses we’ve visited, the Bonnet House was not a formal residence – it was a place for the family to relax in informality, and as we walked through the various rooms the overall feel was one of “lived-in”. It was as if the family had just left, and we were seeing things just as they were back in the 1920s. The art gallery jammed with Mr. Bartlett’s paintings, the dining room with the table set, the drawing room where I could easily image the family relaxing by the fire and the music room with a beautiful Steinway piano and magnificent veiled marble bust.
Walking the grounds we discovered palm tree lined lakes, the quaint thatched roofed Chickadee bridge and amazing tropical trees with roots growing from their branches just like the banyan trees of Hawaii. Other buildings on the property housed the servant’s quarters – the caretaker and the gardener.
We highly recommend a visit to the Bonnet House and Museum if you are in Fort Lauderdale and don’t fancy lounging on the beaches.
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