Two posts in a row about house museums, Gentle Readers! Thank you for indulging me. You know I love a good house museum.
This one is called Bonnet House, and John and I discovered it on a mini-break in Fort Lauderdale a few weeks ago. (“Discovered” may be a strong word…the property was literally next door to our hotel, it was a rainy day, and we had no car, so…)
You can’t see the house from the beach, or from the street. It’s nestled in the center of what is now a state park.
The family story is interesting but involved, so I’ll give you the shortest version I can. This elegant gentleman, Hugh Taylor Birch…
…started buying beachfront property in Fort Lauderdale in the 1890s. His daughter, Helen Louise, married artist Frederic Clay Bartlett,
and Mr. Birch gave them some of the land as a wedding present. (Nice.) They built Bonnet House. Helen Louise died. Then Frederic married Evelyn Fortune Lilly (of those Lillys), and throughout the 1930s and 40s, they transformed the property into the charmingly kooky place it is now.
Frederic wanted to build a “Caribbean-style plantation house” (yeesh) with Moorish touches, and I guess that’s what he achieved. This is what you see when you approach, though. Underwhelming.
THEN, however, you walk through a doorway, and, ta-daaa:
Tropical paradise. The house has a central courtyard — there are no indoor hallways, actually — outbuildings, several different gardens, and a lagoon. This is what the house looks like from the other side, facing the ocean.
Frederic and Evelyn were serious collectors. Of art (they amassed quite a collection of Impressionist paintings, which eventually ended up at the Art Institute of Chicago), dishes (woman after my own heart), seashells and other sea-related objects, and animals. All around the loggia there are animals.
Most are carved wood, but some are from a carousel.
Some of Evelyn’s more whimsical paintings hang on the walls of the loggia.
I confess that I can’t get past the concrete blocks. They were handmade on site, so that’s impressive, but in the turquoise and yellow…it felt a bit like my daughters’ elementary school. The docent emphasized that the house is exactly as Frederic and Evelyn left it, so these colors were an active choice. Anyway.
Some of the rooms weren’t open to visitors. But we could peek into the music room
It was quite a contrast with the next space: the artists’ studio.
I actually love Evelyn’s paintings, particularly the portraits. They’re so….’30s.
The butler’s pantry was amazing. Here’s where the color was excellent (terrible in my pictures, though). The dark aqua with the shiny red linoleum floor is so cheerful.
The dining room is, in a word, bizarre. Charmingly so, but…well, first off, it’s octagonal.
Second, taxidermied fish (and a few unlucky turtles) caught by Frederic adorn the walls.
And third, well, there are touches like this:
The drawing room is the height of quirky coziness — and you know I’m a sucker for a checkerboard floor.
In a separate building is the round “Shell Museum.” Please note that those are actual shells on the walls.
And then, what’s this, attached to the tiny shell museum? Why, it’s a bamboo bar, of course!
And attached on another side is the greenhouse.
On the ocean side of the house,
a docent explained where Bonnet House got its name. The nickname for these Spatterdock Water-Lillies is, you guessed it, Bonnet Lillies. But she said that alligators sealed the deal: evidently, when they emerge from the slough, they often have a lily pad resting on their head like a bonnet, which Evelyn found hilarious.
I don’t know if I believe that second part, but that’s what we were told.
Tasteful it isn’t, but doesn’t Bonnet House give you such a sense of who Frederic and Evelyn were? Bright colors, animals-a-go-go, seashells (and dead fish) glued to the wall, a million sets of dishes in the pantry…I bet they were fun. This was a house for family and informal visits from friends, not for large-scale entertaining, so they did whatever they wanted.
Quite a contrast to the railroad magnate’s house, isn’t it?
Annie Elliott Design is based in Washington, DC, with offices in St. Michaels, Maryland and Middlebury, Vermont. We love mixing styles, and we will wallpaper anything that stands still. Thank you, Houzz community, for voting us Best of Houzz – Design for the third time!