Broward County’s America 250 Story Runs Through Fort Lauderdale’s Bonnet House

BROWARD COUNTY — Broward County’s America 250 highlight is not a battlefield or a state capitol. It is a preserved piece of Old South Florida sitting in the middle of modern Fort Lauderdale.

Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, located at 900 N. Birch Road in Fort Lauderdale, is listed by America250FL as one of Florida’s Historic and Heritage Sites for the state’s semiquincentennial celebration. [1]

For Broward residents, that gives the county a clear local connection to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It also puts a spotlight on one of the rare places where art, coastal ecology and early 20th-century Florida history still share the same address.

Bonnet House is a 35-acre estate on Fort Lauderdale’s barrier island, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. Today, the museum describes the property as one of the last preserved barrier-island habitats in South Florida, with five distinct ecosystems, meandering nature trails, gardens and an orchid collection with more than 3,000 specimens. [2]

That setting is what makes the site more than a historic house.

In a county defined by growth, traffic, condos, beaches, airports, ports and constant redevelopment, Bonnet House remains a living reminder of what Fort Lauderdale’s coast looked like before much of it was rebuilt for modern tourism and real estate.

The estate was built in 1920 as the winter retreat of the Birch and Bartlett family. Bonnet House says the property preserves the creative lifestyle of Frederic and Evelyn Bartlett, combining art, architecture, history and nature in a way that still reflects early 20th-century South Florida. [3]

Frederic Clay Bartlett was an artist. Evelyn Fortune Bartlett was also deeply connected to the artistic identity and preservation story of the estate. Their home became a place where art was not simply displayed, but built into the experience of the property.

That artistic legacy is part of the reason Bonnet House is using the America 250 moment for a focused exhibit.

The museum’s current exhibit, “America 250 Florida: 100 Years on a Barrier Island: A Pioneering and Artistic Heritage,” is on view in the Studio through Dec. 27, 2026. Bonnet House says the exhibit includes items usually kept in storage, including Frederic’s original concept drawing for Bonnet House, his Silver Medal for murals from the 1904 Saint Louis Universal Exposition, Evelyn’s passports, signed letters to Evelyn from a former president and recognitions connected to her preservation efforts. [4]

The exhibit places Bonnet House inside a wider American timeline.

According to the museum, the display connects local history with larger events including World War I, the worldwide influenza epidemic, the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, the Great Depression, World War II, the rise of Fort Lauderdale through land booms and Evelyn Bartlett’s decision to gift the estate for historic preservation. [4]

That is the story Broward County can tell during America 250.

It is not only the story of one wealthy winter home. It is the story of a barrier island, a growing coastal city, an artistic household, environmental preservation and a community that kept one of its most fragile historic places from being swallowed by development.

Bonnet House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and declared a historic landmark by the City of Fort Lauderdale in 2002. The museum is also accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. [5]

Those designations matter because Broward County’s history can be easy to miss. Unlike older parts of Florida, much of Broward’s modern identity was built through 20th-century development, drainage, tourism and population growth. The county’s past often hides behind the pace of its present.

Bonnet House slows that down.

For Fort Lauderdale residents, it is a local landmark hiding in plain sight. For Hollywood and Pembroke Pines residents, it is a countywide heritage destination close enough to visit without treating history like a long-distance trip. For visitors, it offers a version of Broward that is not limited to beaches, nightlife or cruise traffic.

That may be the strongest local angle of the America 250 series.

Florida’s semiquincentennial celebration is not only about the oldest buildings or the most famous names. It is also about the places that explain how communities changed, what they saved and what they nearly lost.

In Broward County, Bonnet House tells that story through orchids, paintings, gardens, coastal habitat and a house that survived while the city around it transformed.

As America prepares to mark 250 years, Broward’s America 250 stop reminds residents that history does not always look like a monument.

Sometimes it looks like a garden gate, a studio, a barrier island and a preserved home that still makes modern Fort Lauderdale feel a little less temporary.

Footnotes

[1] America250FL, “Historic and Heritage Sites,” listing for Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, 900 N. Birch Road, Fort Lauderdale.

[2] Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, “Visit.”

[3] Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, “Why Bonnet House?”

[4] Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, “The Curatorial Eye: Celebrating America 250 Florida and the Bartlett Legacy,” March 18, 2026.

[5] Bonnet House Museum & Gardens, “History.”
:::