Bonnet House

Bonnet House
Gate to Bonnet House grounds
Location Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Coordinates 26°8′7″N 80°6′20″W / 26.13528°N 80.10556°WCoordinates: 26°8′7″N 80°6′20″W / 26.13528°N 80.10556°W
NRHP Reference # 84000832[1]
Added to NRHP July 5, 1984

The Bonnet House (also known as the Bartlett Estate) is a historic home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. It is located at 900 Birch Road. On July 5, 1984, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It is named after the Bonnet Lily.[2]

The property was originally acquired in 1895 by Hugh Taylor Birch, a successful Chicago lawyer, and given to his daughter Helen and her husband, artist Frederic Clay Bartlett, as a wedding gift in 1919. Bartlett built a plantation-style home on the property and wintered there with his wife and child from a previous marriage, Frederic Jr, until Helen died in 1925. Bartlett then married Evelyn Fortune Lilly, ex-wife of Eli Lilly, and they continued to use the home as a winter residence until his death in 1953 and hers in 1997. She deeded the property in 1983 to the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, which maintains the property as a historic house museum called the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens.[3]

Bartlett's sister, Maie Bartlett Heard, founded the Heard Museum in Phoenix with her husband Dwight B. Heard.

This place served as the finish line for the seventh season of the hit CBS reality show The Amazing Race.

In May, 2008 The National Trust for Historic Preservation listed the building on their list of America's Most Endangered Places.[4]

References

  1. ↑ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2010-07-09.
  2. ↑ "Lilies Of Art Field Focus Of Bonnet House Tribute". Retrieved 2011-08-29.
  3. ↑ "Bonnet House is full of wildlife, whimsy and wonder". Retrieved 2011-08-29.
  4. ↑ Threats to history seen in budget cuts, bulldozers

External links

Inside the main house of the estate