Bonnet House Museum & Gardens

Chicago artist Frederic Clay Bartlett's 1920 winter estate, built on 35 oceanfront acres given to him by his father-in-law Hugh Taylor Birch — a Chicago attorney and naturalist who had bought up much of the barrier island decades earlier. Bartlett laid out a Caribbean-plantation-style house around a central courtyard with monkey and swan enclosures, and painted the interior murals himself. His second wife Helen Birch died in 1925; his third wife Evelyn Fortune Lilly wintered here until 1995, when she deeded the place to the Florida Trust. The grounds still hold five intact ecosystems — beach and primary dune, freshwater slough, secondary dune, mangrove wetlands, maritime hammock — the last undeveloped stretch between A1A and the Intracoastal.

What to order

Buy the $30 self-guided House & Gardens ticket at the gate (Broward residents $25 with ID); allow 90 minutes for the grounds alone. Bike gear is fine but there are no lockers, so travel light — the parking lot is off Birch Road, gated, and safe to leave a bike.

Hours

Wed–Mon 9a–4p, closed Tue · last self-guided entry 3p · guided house tours Tue/Thu/Fri at 10a and 1p