The main entrance of the house with benches designed by Bartlett and obelisks made form local limestone – the symmetry is one of the main features preferred by the owner.
Primary colors, symmetry, an eclectic collection of art and an unexpected anticipation of a sustainable approach in daily living is what makes Bonnet House a truly unique Floridian villa from the Twenties.
Hugh Taylor Birch’s love for this part of the coastline (today Fort Lauderdale) was the catalyst for an unusually open-minded approach to architecture and daily life.
The house, unlike most of big villas built at the beginning of 1900’s in Palm Beach, incorporated local materials and bricks made on site. Bartlett – the son in law of Birch and an artist, didn’t want to follow the general trend of “Mizner-like” huge manors and designed the house by himself reinterpreting the plantation style. A house made to delight his family, as he said, and not as a showcase for others.
Bonnet House Museum and Gardens was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. In 2004, the National Trust for Historic Preservation included the site in its Save America’s Treasures program. Surrounded today by massive development, the Bonnet House and Gardens has been listed as one of America’s 11 most endangered sites since 2008.
The central part of the house is a sort of medieval cloister surrounded by a porch that unifies all parts of the house
A profuse use of primary colors is probably the first feature that a visitor can notice in this house.
The porch opens with many windows to the outside garden and guarantees always a free air circulation.
Yellow, yellow, yellow…… with a blue background and some splashes of red.
The house has a second floor but at the moment not accessible for public.
The architecture of the house has many references to culture from places the Bartletts used to travel to.
After primary colors, the second most evident feature of the Bonnet House is the presence of countless decorative elements with animals.
….and animals.
………colors and animals again.
Lush vegetation and references to New Orleans houses.
The garden…..an invitation to take a stroll.
Or just lying on the grass.
The excessive buildings from surroundings visually “enter” into the garden.