- [Announcer] Funding for this program is brought to you in part by: the Neil Goldberg Dream Foundation and the Judith Linnell Foundation Fund at the Community Foundation of Broward.

(projector humming) (film reel clicking) (bright lively music) ("Florida Among The Palms") ♪ If I had my way ♪ ♪ I'd always stay ♪ ♪ In Florida among the palms ♪ - [Poet] I am a story shaped by time, a hidden sanctuary created by people who believed that beauty, culture, and harmony with nature were worth preserving.

Their extraordinary vision took root here long before the world began to rise around me.

I have endured in quiet ways, holding history and stories, weaving them into memories that still live within me.

I am a living canvas "Hidden In Plain Sight."

♪ Home of the sheltering palms ♪ (waves crashing) (birds cawing) (serene guitar music) - [Narrator] Hidden amid the high rises and modern rhythm of Fort Lauderdale Beach stands the Bonnet House Museum and Gardens, a sanctuary from another time that reflects the soul of early 1900s Florida and where nature, art, and imagination intertwine through the vision of the artists who built it.

- The history of Bonnet House really starts with the arrival of Hugh Taylor Birch in Florida in 1893.

(lively cheerful music) Hugh Taylor Birch was a Chicago attorney.

He had worked for Standard Oil as their general counsel.

So if you think back to the Gilded Age, all that was going on in the United States in the 1880s and 1890s, railroads, steel, industrialization, Hugh Taylor Birch had made his money from his representation and work for Standard Oil.

He also had a huge appreciation for nature, and that's really what drew him to Florida.

- [Narrator] Besides the unspoiled nature of South Florida at the time, Birch was also drawn by its promise of agricultural opportunities.

(lively music continues) Borrowing a yacht from Henry Flagler, one of Florida's greatest visionaries, Birch sailed south until a sudden storm forced him to seek shelter in a quiet inlet then known as Lake Mabel, located in between what is now Bahia Mar and what would become Port Everglades, one of the busiest seaports in the nation.

- He thought Providence had guided him to a safe harbor, fell in love with the area, and he started up buying beachfront land.

He paid on average about $35 an acre for it, because at that time no one wanted to live on the coast down here.

It was windswept, prone to storms, mosquitoes.

All of the early settlement in Fort Lauderdale was downtown and around the Stranahan Trading Post, but Birch loved it.

South Florida of the 1890s was very different from what we think about South Florida being today.

Live oak trees with moss hanging over them, over pathways, just a very undeveloped, unspoiled place, - [Narrator] Captivated by the solitude and untamed beauty of the barrier islands, Birch decided to establish a winter presence here.

He built his first home, which he called Moon Flower Villa, near the corner of what is now Las Olas Boulevard and A1A.

He soon began spending his winters here with his beloved daughter, Helen.

- Her mother had died, so it was really Hugh Taylor Birch and Helen here by themselves in those early days.

- [Narrator] Helen was an accomplished composer and poet, and like her father, she shared a deep love of nature.

- When she came down with her father, she very much enjoyed exploring the coastal wilderness of South Florida.

- [Narrator] While in Chicago, Helen met Frederic Clay Bartlett, a highly respected local artist whose reputation was built on acclaimed works such as the murals at Chicago's Second and Fourth Presbyterian Churches and the University Club of Chicago, among many others.

He received his formal training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Bavaria, today known as the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.

- We're very fortunate to have some of his artwork from his student days there, and when you look at that artwork, you can really see the innate talent that this man had.

- [Narrator] Through their shared passion for the arts and culture, Helen and Frederic fell in love and married in 1919.

- And as a wedding gift, Hugh Taylor Birch gave them this 35 acre parcel to build a winter home.

- [Narrator] Over a period of several years, Hugh Taylor Birch purchased nearly three miles of Fort Lauderdale's coastline, securing an extraordinary expanse of undeveloped land.

- The extent of his land purchase here was from Galt Ocean Mile, which today is a huge condominium stretch on Fort Lauderdale Beach north of Bonnet House, all the way down to Las Olas Boulevard.

- [Narrator] At the time, Mediterranean revival architecture was sweeping South Florida, popular in Coral Gables and Palm Beach, but Frederic Bartlett envisioned something entirely different for the Bonnet House.

- Bonnet House is very much a creation of Frederic, and its architectural style is very hard to pin down.

- [Narrator] Friends with legendary architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Howard Van Doren Shaw, Bartlett incorporated ideas from them, blending these influences with his own singular vision.

(light upbeat music) True to his imaginative and carefree nature, he even sketched his plans on the back of a Campari Liqueur advertisement.

- He said, "I'm going to do a plantation house," and this is his interpretation of a plantation house, and all the ironwork, the balcony above, came from New Orleans.

He designed it, made the blueprints.

He did everything.

And he, uh... he was the one who oversaw the construction of it.

- And he hit on kind of a Caribbean style architecture, but there are also some Moorish and Egyptian feelings that you can find here.

- [Narrator] Construction began in 1919, and Frederic infused its design and atmosphere with the sensibilities of a trained artist, but actually building the home was no easy task.

- Fort Lauderdale in 1919 was a very different place than it is today.

There was no bridge that connected the barrier island, so the only way to get building materials here was by boat.

- [Narrator] Given these challenges, much of the Bonnet House was constructed using materials from its natural surroundings.

- The concrete blocks that Bonnet House was built with were actually made from beach sand and brackish water here on site.

Cypress was one of the woods that was used, as well as Dade County Pine.

So you can really, in some regards, think of Bonnet House as rising from the beach itself.

- [Narrator] Bartlett wanted the house to exist in harmony with its environment, designing it around a central open courtyard that brought the outdoors inside.

- There are no interior staircases here at Bonnet House.

If you came and stayed at Bonnet House as a guest of the Bartletts, you would have to interact with nature on a daily basis.

- [Narrator] In an era before air conditioning, this open plan also allowed fresh ocean breezes to flow through the house, naturally keeping it cool.

ike design And this cloister surrounds the courtyard with numerous rooms, each carefully crafted for its own purpose.

- Perhaps one of the most important rooms that was built here was the studio, because Frederic always foresaw making art here on site.

There was also a music room built so that Helen could pursue her music composition and poetry writing.

- [Narrator] Within the main house, an ornately decorated drawing room offered a place for quiet reflection, reading, and pastime.

(light upbeat music) Across the breezeway, the kitchen and dining room reflect the family's everyday life.

Upstairs are several private spaces, including the private quarters of Hugh Taylor Birch, a guest room, and Evelyn and Frederic's bedroom.

- Which we're sitting in today.

So while Bonnet House was very much a beach house, there were amenities here to help make for a very comfortable life for the Bartletts.

- [Narrator] When the house was first built, locals knew of its existence, yet the Bartletts' private nature and limited social ties gave the Bonnet House an air of mystery.

- There is also a group that we affectionately think of as the Over the Wall Club, because it was kind of a rite of passage for teenage boys to try and sneak over the wall here at Bonnet House and make it to the other end of the property without being pursued by the caretaker who lived here year 'round.

- My friends and I always wondered what was in there, so we would sneak in.

And they had a pond, so when it wasn't occupied, then we'd sneak in to see what was going on.

(gentle music) - Frederic was a collector of art as well as an artist in his own right.

He and Helen traveled on their honeymoon in Europe.

This would have been in 1919, and on that trip collected an unprecedented collection of artwork to bring to the United States: paintings by Seurat, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec iconic pieces of artwork.

- [Narrator] Upon their return from Europe, the Bartletts offered this remarkable collection to the Art Institute of Chicago, which accepted it only reluctantly, viewing the works as too avant-garde yet it is the bedrock of their collection today.

- It's known as the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection and it is really an iconic collection of artwork that is in the United States because of Frederic Bartlett.

- [Narrator] Frederic had previously been married to Dora Tripp, another artist he met while training in Munich.

Tragically, she passed away, leaving behind their son Clay, who would also become an artist.

- And when they were married, Helen actually helped raise Clay.

- [Narrator] But in an ironic twist of fate, tragedy struck once again.

Just six years into their marriage, Helen passed away from breast cancer.

- And by all accounts, Frederic was truly distraught.

Hugh Taylor Birch continued to live here, but Frederic stopped coming.

It was really too much of a loss for him to come back.

Without Helen, Bonnet House was a very different place.

(bright cheerful music) - [Narrator] However, in the 1930s, Frederic met his next love.

- Her name was Evelyn Fortune Lilly.

She'd been married to Eli Lilly III of the Lilly pharmaceutical family.

Her marriage had ended in divorce, but a mutual friend introduced Evelyn and Frederic.

They fell in love and were married.

- [Narrator] Evelyn too had known personal loss, enduring several miscarriages during her marriage to Eli Lilly, though she did have one daughter, Evie.

- When Frederic met and married Evelyn, they weren't exactly sure that they were going to be spending the winters here at Bonnet House.

They'd gone to the Caribbean and had seen some different places, but when they came to Bonnet House, they in fact decided that this was the place where they wanted to have their winter home.

And it's really because of the marriage of Frederic and Evelyn that Bonnet House looks the way it does today.

- [Narrator] With Evelyn's arrival, the Bonnet House awakened once more, infused with new energy, imagination, and life.

- Evelyn brought with her a tremendous artistic sense.

(bright upbeat music) - [Narrator] One of their most transformative choices was introducing vibrant color, brightening the house and lifting its once somber tone.

- They're actually primary colors.

You have the house itself that is yellow.

You have blue around the courtyard.

And then doors into the studio and into the courtyard, some of those doors are painted red.

- [Narrator] As the Bonnet House came alive once more, even its name carries a story of its own.

- We're not really exactly sure why Bonnet House is named Bonnet House.

Evelyn told a very charming story that at the time the freshwater sloughs that run along the property here had alligators in them, and there were spatterdock lilies, and the alligators would swim and they would come up.

And when they would surface, it looked like a bonnet of lily on the alligator's head.

So that's one story about how Bonnet House got its name.

Probably the more accurate story is that these waterways were identified on very early maps dating back to the 16th century as the Bonnet Sloughs, probably named after an early European explorer named Bonnet.

We're not exactly sure.

We still tell the alligator story, because there's a certain charm to it.

(light carefree music) - [Narrator] Frederic and Evelyn continued to expand the property, adding new structures designed with unique purposes in mind.

- There was a shell museum and bamboo bar complex that was built so that Evelyn could display her shell and orchid collection and also so they could enjoy a cocktail before dinner in the bamboo bar that's there.

There was a house cocktail that Evelyn created.

It was a rangpur lime cocktail.

It's made from rangpur limes, which are actually orange that's mixed with a high proof rum as well as maple syrup to taste.

Rangpur lime comes from India, actually, and we still have some of them growing on the property to this day.

There was also a dry fountain.

It's at the end of an alley of palm trees that run along the southern edge of the slough on the southern edge of the property.

There was also an aviary that was built in the courtyard.

Evelyn was a great lover of animals.

She kept various birds and monkeys as pets.

The Island Theater is another building that was built in the 1930s.

That was built so that Frederic and Evelyn could show their home movies.

And the story goes that people paid admission of two matched shells to get into the Island Theater to see home movies in the evening, and those would have been shells that would've been collected along the beach here in Fort Lauderdale at that time.

She was a passionate collector of orchids, and in fact she had a bit of a sibling rivalry.

Her sister also grew orchids, and I'm told that if one got an orchid that was rare, the other one had to get an orchid that was even more rare.

- [Narrator] Although Evelyn showed an innate artistic talent early on, she never pursued a life as an artist until her marriage to Frederic.

- Frederic had cataract surgery.

And so Frederic was bedridden for a bit of time.

Evelyn was sitting by his bedside, and to pass the time she started drawing.

And when he recovered his sight, he was amazed to find that Evelyn was an artist.

(light upbeat music) - [Narrator] From that point on, Evelyn became an avid painter, creating many works inspired by the very beauty and character of the Bonnet House.

- [Patrick] She had exhibits in the Northeast and was well received.

- [Narrator] Evelyn's artistic passion inspired Frederic to reimagine his own style of painting.

- Evelyn's the subject of several of those paintings.

- [Narrator] Not only is she in many of Frederic's paintings, he also created portraits of himself and Evelyn, works that reflect how deeply she inspired this new chapter of his artistic life and encouraged him to explore new forms of expression.

- You can see how his art really loosens up over time, and you can see how his art is influenced by the impressionists and post-impressionists We have one painting that he did here which is very reminiscent of Toulouse-Lautrec and in fact is kind of a spoof on one of Lautrec's paintings.

- [Narrator] Evelyn, too, was a prolific collector of art.

And over time, her love of animals drew her to add a new whimsical or exotic piece to her imaginative collection.

Reflecting his early interest in agricultural development, Hugh Taylor Birch planted numerous fruit trees, establishing orchards that once spread across the entire property.

- The property that is north of Sunrise Boulevard, which is today Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, you will see some mango trees as well that line up with the orchard here at Bonnet House, showing that there was actually a large orchard that crossed across where Sunrise Boulevard is today.

- [Narrator] A vast estate, the Bonnet House required a dedicated staff, from maids and cooks to groundskeepers and household workers.

And in an era when segregation was still deeply entrenched, much of the Bonnet House staff was African-American.

- Unlike a lot of the South, the Bartletts actually had a great deal of respect for their staff.

- They respected us highly, and I can remember from a child, Mrs.

Bartlett she would always bring something.

She'd come out, and she'll say, "Brought you something."

They treated you really like a part of the family.

- The beach here at Bonnet House, which is part of the Bonnet House site, is a private beach.

The rest of the beaches in Fort Lauderdale were segregated.

There were certain "colored beaches," as they were called at that time.

The Bartletts made it known that any of their staff that were here, their family, if they wanted to use the beach, they could use the beach here at Bonnet House.

(jazzy upbeat music) - [Narrator] The beach was among the property's greatest treasures, and the Bartletts embraced and enjoyed it to the fullest.

- They would go to the beach on almost a daily basis, and we're very fortunate to have color home movies that were taken here in the 1930s and 1940s, when A1A, which is today a four-lane divided highway was actually just a two-lane road in those days.

They also had a boat, and our boathouse here was where their boat was kept.

It was a Richardson boat.

It was called The Bonnet, and they were able to take that out, go out to the Intracoastal Waterway, and cruise up and down the Intracoastal.

- [Narrator] Despite the loss of Helen, Hugh Taylor Birch's daughter, and though Evelyn was not his own child, he remained residing on the property, maintaining continuity of life at the Bonnet House.

- Evelyn and Frederic and Hugh Taylor Birch got on very well.

His bedroom is as it was when he was living here with them, and Evelyn actually did a painting of Hugh Taylor Birch with a chicken feather in his hat.

Sometime in the early 1940s, he built a house in what is today Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, just north of us.

A very unassuming two-story house that is today the park headquarters.

- [Narrator] Hugh Taylor Birch passed away in 1943 at the age of 94, leaving behind a vision that helped shape the future of Fort Lauderdale Beach.

- You really see the significance of what he did for Fort Lauderdale in the period after his death, because the property south here was left in his will to Antioch College in Ohio.

They immediately sold the property for development.

It's because of Hugh Taylor Birch that we have the beach that we do here in Fort Lauderdale today.

- [Narrator] Birch also left a significant portion of his land to the state of Florida, now preserved as Hugh Taylor Birch State Park.

- You look at the rest of Fort Lauderdale Beach, high-rise hotels intense development, it's because of Hugh Taylor Birch that there is a piece of the native Florida ecosystem that is here today along with Evelyn Bartlett.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] In 1953, Frederic Bartlett suffered a stroke that ended his drive to create art.

- And Evelyn tells this in her oral histories that the life just drained out of him at that point, because art and the creation of art was such a part of his life.

- [Narrator] Frederic passed away from complications.

But remarkably, just days before his stroke, he created his final piece of art, a work that would forever remain in the home's music room.

- At the time, there was a bare concrete floor to begin with that had a rug on it that wasn't in very good shape, and Frederic and Evelyn were expecting guests to come.

And rather than buy a new rug, Frederic decided he would paint the floor.

So the decorative floor in the music room it's also his last piece of artwork.

He died in 1953, leaving Evelyn a widow.

She did remarry.

She married a man named Dan Huger, and our understanding is that it was actually at Frederic's encouragement that she marry a third and final time, because Frederic didn't want her to be alone.

That's how much of a love he had for Evelyn.

They were only married until 1961.

Dan died from cancer at that point, and Evelyn was left alone here at Bonnet House, coming back every winter.

- [Narrator] As time passed, Evelyn became determined to ensure that the Bonnet House be preserved for future generations.

She began reaching out to organizations that might take on that responsibility.

- Finally, in 1983, she found an organization called the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation.

It's a private 501(c)(3) organization that had been set up to save the old state capitol building in Tallahassee, and they were asked if they might be interested in taking on Bonnet House.

They were indeed interested.

- [Narrator] At the age of 96, Evelyn agreed to entrust the Bonnet House to the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, but with one stipulation: That she be allowed to spend her winters there until her death.

- And it is recognized now as a house of unique qualities and style, and an example which will, I think, be most effective for future generations.

- [Narrator] Little did anyone expect that she would continue to live longer than anyone imagined.

- Even though she gave the property in 1983, her last winter here was in fact in 1995.

She was 107 years old.

(gentle music) And today, Bonnet House, its collection and everything that has to do with it, is managed and owned by Bonnet House, Inc.

- [Narrator] It is remarkable that the Bonnet House still stands today, a testament to Evelyn's tenacity and unwavering dedication to preserving it.

- It's a unique blend of art and nature and the vision that Evelyn had for posterity.

(bright upbeat music) - [Narrator] With an eye on the future, Bonnet House plans to expand the property and create beautiful new multipurpose spaces that will serve the community and visitors.

(bright music continues) In keeping with the estate's unique essence, the new addition is designed in harmony with Frederic Bartlett's original vision.

- Well we didn't want the building to be modern or ultra modern We wanted something that would sort of disappear in the landscape so that years from now, it's not the addition that's the key, but the Bonnet House stays the featured piece.

- You have to be very cognizant of the historic character of the building.

We didn't replicate anything that's on this house.

We just used it as a palette, and we designed the complex around the courtyard of similar scale and proportions as this.

So the whole site plan is predicated on Mr.

Bartlett's sketch and design.

- Where are you going to find a place like this, with the acreage that it has, with a house intact from its original construction, in the middle of a metropolitan area like Fort Lauderdale?

That's what makes it special.

(gentle music) - [Poet] And so, I have watched the seasons come and go.

Generations have passed through my doors and with every visitor who walks my paths I am less and less hidden in plain sight.

I exist not merely as a memory, but as a beacon to the future, a destination to be immersed in beauty, nature, and art.

A bridge across time between what was and what is yet to come.

I am Bonnet House Museum and Gardens, and I am still here.

- There's nothing left along the shore, you know.

There's nothing left except this place.

I don't want it to change.

(film reel clicking) ♪ If I had my way ♪ ♪ I'd always stay ♪ ♪ In Florida among the palms ♪ ♪ My once favorite haunt ♪ ♪ Is a palm tree and all I want ♪ ♪ Is someone just to rest in my arms ♪ ♪ I'd live among the bamboo huts, the coconuts ♪ ♪ There's something in the climate that charms ♪ ♪ Heaven's corridor is sunny Florida ♪ ♪ Home of the sheltering palms ♪ - [Announcer] Funding for this program was brought to you in part by: the Neil Goldberg Dream Foundation and the Judith Linnell Foundation Fund at the Community Foundation of Broward.