[Music] hello miss penny welcome to bonnet house very good to see you are you ready for your tour of bonnet house i am let's let the tour begin yes the bonnet house was built in 1920 and home to artist frederick barlett now it's a museum that everyone can visit miss many of you come to one of those unique places in all of south florida so i'll be glad to help you any way that i can great because we want to find out about your job we'd also like to take a tour of this beautiful bonnet house my job primarily is to try to get people to understand what we have here which is to my mind is the treasure of all of south florida so i guess the first question i'll ask you is what exactly is a tour a tour is a trip back in time to understand how this house came to exist and how would you define your job as a tour guide try to help people understand how this place came to be what it is and how lucky we are to have it and to me that's my that's my job why are tours important it's so much better when you can understand what's here why it's here and so many different aspects of it and that if you don't take the tour you'd never know right you wouldn't understand the essence of everything that this place represents what makes a good tour guide a good tour guide has to understand what's here and really love what's here and i think it's not counting things and saying there are six of this and for that i think it's it's understanding the background the history and how it all came to be [Music] and what are the ages of tour guides here youngest one was probably about 16 and the oldest one 85 or so do they have a specific training so they make sure everyone is on the same page specific training is generally a three-day training session that you go through so you'll get the exposure to the art to the family to the grounds everything about it and then does someone go on the tour with you to make sure that you're on the right track initially yes and it's funny because i haven't i started volunteering i think 11 years ago and the last time that i'd been here before that was 65 years ago and here i am 55 years later and started volunteering at a place where it had my high school yearbook picture taken yeah crazy coincidence has it changed much since then not not really not really and that to me is the beauty of it that the place is still here and it's just such a unique special special place to be a museum it's a museum but it's not really a museum in my mind it's just someone's beautiful house that you love to live in and and run around in and the funny thing is everyone on the tour tends to have a different reaction some members fascinated by the building some were fascinated by the courtyard outside other fascinated by the paintings it just it just offers so much of a variety i just you got to find something you like in this house and i think that's what the guide helps you distinguish once they identify what your particular interest might be can i focus you to meet that interest and i think that's what distinguishes the guided tour from the self-guided tour you can if you want to just walk through a building but you get so much more out of it it's so much more meaningful you remember it you've made a connection to it and you understand where you've been i totally agree with you are you ready for your tour now i am okay let's do it okay [Music] and where are we at this moment we are in the kitchen got a beautiful old gas range a refrigerator you'll see these stanchions with the ribbons on there because we need to protect everything that's here everything that's in here it's really special and a lot of it is very very old and we don't want people getting touchy shall we say right and i think everyone understands when they see that to stay behind stay behind and that's the fair way to do it for everybody as we get started on our tour i'd like to find out about how people would identify a tour guide the easiest way to identify the tour guide is if they have blue shorts and a yellow shirt which are two of the three colors you'll see prominently around bonnet house the third color being red and of course everyone has their little name tag at the same time identifying their name and that they're a volunteer here at the house i like that your colors are blue and yellow i appropriately wore the right colors today for the bonnet house and i also say that you have a map do you give people maps if you pick up the map when you come in the door as you you'll see one side of it it shows house tour map and it really gives you a nice flow plan of stops that you want to go to one after the other and make sure you don't miss anything along the way and again of course on the other side it shows the ground tour map so you can find the building and the grounds the waterway in front of the house how to get over that how to visit the different areas just there's just a lot of things to see here if you take your time and really appreciate what's here and it's helpful to have a map to show you around like so then you don't miss anything and you know where you are absolutely because this is a confusing place and people aren't sure where do i go next and this these maps are so helpful are you ready to go visit another room i am please lead on thank you [Music] i love as we walk around the house we see all these different and beautiful paintings but this one is my personal favorite because here's freddie dancing with evelyn wife number three have you ever heard the expression she dances like she has two left feet yes well take a look at evelyn because she's got a left foot here and she's got a left foot there he's painted her with two left feet and remember when we were back in the studio and you saw the drawings that he did when he was 20 and 21 years old and then you realize that over a period of time artists evolve they keep trying different things different things and this is i think it's just in its own way it's really really cool it's delightful so enjoy that's why you've got to wander the property you've got to really be looking all the time because every 10 or 20 feet you're going to see something different it's just crazy i see so many paintings and objects of animals and it's just and then the flowers and the bushes and the bird cage and everything it just goes on and on and on i think it's that's why i think it's such a special place everywhere you look everywhere you look there's something different to look at african carvings to go with the ostrich it just there's there's just so much variety in this place [Music] everywhere you look there's something different isn't there it's just that that to me is what's so special about this house it's just you've got to find something you like you really have to find something you like and such a variety of different things from paintings to mosaics to murals to statues and you write about the colors like the yellow just really brings out everything those are the three primary colors and that's what you work with you work with blue you work with yellow and you work with red and i think they did such a wonderful wonderful tasteful job of doing it and welcome to the orchid house shell museum well i love the idea that he has some of his favorite things he has shells collected from around the world he has beautiful orchids with a fountain so that you can smell and see and enjoy the beauty of nature absolutely [Music] thank you so much joe for being an excellent tour guide i understand now that tour guides must have passion because you have passed that passion on about the bonnet house it was a wonderful tour i really appreciated it enjoy thank you tell your friends to come and enjoy it also i will and i'll be back okay thank you thank you [Music] hi boys and girls it's miss penny put on your thinking caps it's time to learn a new word map a map is a drawing that represents a specific area by looking at its physical features from an overhead perspective what was that word good job stanchion a stanchion is an upright bar with retractable ropes that are used to create barriers what was that word good job tour a tour is a brief trip through a place for the purpose of seeing it and understanding the interesting things that are at the location what was that word good job tour guide a tour guide is a person who guides visitors around a tourist attraction giving them interesting and entertaining information what was that word good job see you next time you