The Newsletter October - December 2013 The Long Road to Preservation FAM Conference Attendees Visit Bonnet House Annual Report From the CEO Bonnet House Hosts Opening Reception of the FAM Conference On Sunday September 8, 2013 more than 100 attendees of the Florida Association of Museums Conference visited Bonnet House for their opening reception. There were a number of VIPs from the museum world including Ford Bell, Presi- dent of the American Alliance of Museums. Attendees were treated to tours of the house and grounds and a lovely buffet recep- tion. Many of the guests had never been to Bonnet House and were very impressed! Thanks to all our staff members and volun- teers who worked hard to make the evening special. The Annual Conference of the Florida Association of Museums attracts museum professionals from around the State. This is the first time the conference has been held in the City of Fort Lauderdale in a number of years. Thier visit also included tours of Stranahan House, Museum of Art, Museum of Discovery and Science and Young at Art. Bonnet House Newseltter We are pleased to present a new format of the Bonnet House news- letter with expanded coverage of all that is going on here. We are also resuming printing the news- letter for all our members…there’s just too much to read about in an email! Photos top left to bottom. Young At Art Museum, Photo by Through the Shutter, LLC Bonnet House Courtyard Musuem of Art Fort Lauderdale Ford Bell, A.A.M. President your estate plan. For sample language for a bequest to share with your attorney, contact Patrick Shavloske Development News at 954-703-2603 or patrickshavloske@bonnethouse. Bonnet House Alliance Supports Bonnet House org. Orchid, Garden, and Gourmet Food Festival at Bon- net House Welcomes New Chair Bonnet House is pleased to announce that board member Stephanie Jean will succeed Paige Brody as chair of the Bonnet House Orchid Festival. Held the first Saturday and Sunday of December, the Orchid Festival brings over forty specialty orchid vendors to Bonnet House as well as purveyors of gardening supplies, food vendors, and home and garden im- provement demonstrations. The Festival now sees Bonnet House offers its sincerest thanks to all over 2,000 attendees thanks to Paige’s hard work, the members of the Bonnet House Alliance who and Stephanie is sure to take the event to new levels worked so diligently to raise funds to support Bonnet of success! This year, the Orchid Festival will take House in the 2012-13 Fiscal Year. As a result of their place on December 7th and 8th. Mark your calendars efforts with Entirely Entertaining and other initia- and plan to attend! tives, the Alliance was able to make a commitment Preparations Begin for the 18th Annual Young Artist of $45,000 to Bonnet House. These funds will cover a variety of restoration projects including adding Music Series; Sponsors Needed climate control, a drop ceiling, and a new bridge to Though still sum- the Island Theater, new dining room lighting (already mer-like here at Bonnet installed) and carpentry projects in the Main House. House, the winter season The Bonnet House Alliance is comprised of members is just around the corner. who host events to raise awareness about Bonnet That means more pleas- House, raise funds for restoration projects at the es- ant weather and events tate, and provide camaraderie for the many volunteers that take advantage of the that make operating Bonnet House possible. Mem- beautiful grounds, veranda, bership is open at no additional cost to any active and courtyard of Bonnet member of Bonnet House. Visit www.bonnethouse. House. The Young Artist org/alliance for more information. Music Series is a signature Fall is a Good Time to Review Estate Plans…or Cre- event on the barrier island, ate One and planning is well under- way for the four-concert series that takes place each No one likes to think of his or her passing from January through April at Bonnet House. The 2014 this world, but death is an event that we all will share season will feature performances by music students in common sooner or hopefully, much later. Putting from Florida Atlantic University, Lynn University, the together an estate plan can seem daunting, but it is University of Miami, and artists in residence at the really a fairly simple process for most people. Not Florida Grand Opera. Ticket revenue doesn’t cover only will it relieve family and friends of sometimes the cost of offering these concerts, so Bonnet House difficult decisions, it is also an empowering process seeks sponsors to make the concerts possible. Spon- that allows one the opportunity to take control of how sorships begin at $1,000 and include VIP seating (in assets accumulated in life will pass. As you begin the first five rows) at each concert, name listing in the gathering year end documents for the tax season, fall program, and complimentary passes to Bonnet House is also a good time to revisit estate plans—particu- that make great gifts. A portion of your sponsor- larly if there has been a major life event in the past ship gift is eligible for tax deduction as a charitable year—or to create one if you are currently without a contribution. For more information on how you can will and/or trust. If Bonnet House has meant some- support Bonnet House and the Music Series, contact thing to you during life, consider leaving a bequest in Patrick Shavloske at 954-703-2603 or patrickshav- [email protected]. The Long Road to Preservation: Bonnet House Museum & Gardens by J. Kent Planck For decades, Frederic and Evelyn Bartlett were pursued by developers wanting to acquire the Bonnet House estate for residential or commercial development. Frederic and his second wife Helen Birch had even fled to Europe in 1924 to escape a near-constant barrage of offers. Such pursuit continued, largely unabated, throughout the 1930s and 40s. to deal with. Consequently, Evelyn became increas- ingly determined to ensure that the magical estate created by her artistic husband be somehow preserved and returned to its former glory. “There’s nothing left along the shore, you know, nothing except this place, from Miami to Palm Beach,” she would later say. “I don’t want it to change.” Evelyn began considering possibilities for pres- ervation, and in this effort enlisted the assistance of her financial advisor, Raymond E. George, Senior Vice President at the Northern Trust Bank in Chicago. Early on, they agreed to change the property’s mail- ing address to that of the bank in Chicago so that in- quiries from developers would be directed to the bank by public records, and Evelyn could thus be spared In the years immediately preceding Frederic dealing with continuing advances and proposals. Bartlett’s death in 1953, the City of Fort Lauderdale Throughout a more than ten-year preservation had been seeking a solution to what was felt to be effort, Evelyn remained steadfast that, not only must too-heavy traffic along State Road A1A which by the property be protected from commercial develop- then separated the eastern perimeter of the Bonnet ers, but also that any organization granted ownership House estate from its beach. The city’s hope had and responsibility for preserving it must be forever been to persuade the Bartletts to allow an alternate prevented from making commercial additions incom- north-south route to be cut through the middle of their patible with running the estate as a museum, cultural property. This was to be accomplished by extending center or nature preserve. the existing Birch Road through the center of the es- As early as 1972, Ray George asked the Nature tate. The Bartletts steadfastly resisted, and following Conservancy’s Christopher Dann, Vice President and Frederic’s death, the city quietly dropped the subject. Director of Development, if there existed precedents Although Frederic and Evelyn Bartlett had long of land being conveyed by gift to a municipal gov- managed to fend off efforts to develop the Bonnet ernment – as one possible and public way to ensure House property, Evelyn by the 1970s – widowed and preservation. Dann said there were, and suggested already in her eighties – became increasingly con- ways that such a public conveyance of Bonnet House cerned about what would happen to the estate and could be made, not only to the city of Fort Lauder- to Frederic’s creative legacy after her death. Even dale, but perhaps to the State of Florida because of though she was still residing comfortably at Bon- the property’s proximity to Birch State Park. Other net House, the property had become badly frayed possible candidates for taking Bonnet House in the around the edges – woodwork damaged and paint early 1970s included the American Horticultural So- peeling, wiring in dangerous need of updating, the ciety and the Audubon Society. grounds heavily overgrown – problems that, though By 1975, the City of Fort Lauderdale renewed well within Evelyn’s financial ability to correct, were its interest in Bonnet House, not for a street expan- seemingly too extensive for an 80-year-old widow sion, but as part of an effort to expand the city’s cont’d on page 10 Bonnet House, Inc. Annual Report July 2012 - June 2013 GIFTS & PLEDGES OF CASH OR Arthur Crispino & Anthony Timiraos Heather B. Brock & Edwin Parkinson STOCK Dick Schwarz & Tom Massey Brody & Brody P.A. Charitable Fund at Our Fund Janet & Russell Carlisle $50,000 or more Connie & Theo Folz George Castleman Anonymous Fowler White Boggs, PA C.